Tanker Incident
by nathan-p
Summary: NaNo 09. When a lovely woman with a peculiar problem steps through his door, private eye Jeb Batchelder finds himself drawn into a tangled web of international intrigue, illegal experimentation, and bizarrely attractive ties. AU.
1. 1

1

I don't like this job. So don't assume that I do.

Why _would_ I like it, anyway? It doesn't pay well. I get shot at every other day, and when I'm not getting shot at someone's bashing me over the head with a blunt weapon.

My office is over a _bar_, for Chrissake. When I don't pay the electric bill and they cut my lights, the neon sign from Jimmy's still lights up my office bright enough to type by. And I can hear every word someone yells in the bar. Sometimes people see the stairs, don't see the sign, and wander up here looking for a hotel room.

I keep an old shotgun in a closet just for that purpose. Does real nice when you're trying to scare someone off, but I've never even bought ammo for the thing. So if I ever get in a situation involving someone more threatening than two horny drunks and that shotgun's all I've got...

I don't like this job, okay?

But that doesn't mean I can't like some of the stories I've got because of it. They get me free drinks sometimes, if I loosen my tie and unbutton my collar, show off the scar where some crazy bastard tried to cut my throat with a shaving razor.

Only if I tell the story too, though.

So how about we get a start on this story? It's my favorite so far, and the night's still young. Get another drink from the bar and settle in -- Jerry never minds if I stay a little long because I'm telling a story.

And we've got all the time in the world to spend, haven't we?

The only trouble with this story is that, like every other one, I'm not sure where to start. This is my great shortcoming. Once I get going, I'm gangbusters -- I have a good memory and a flair for storytelling (if I do say so myself). It's the getting-going that kills me.

* * *

It was night when it all started. Night, and the end of the month -- I remember that because I had all the lights off, trying to save money on my electric bill. So the neon sign for Jimmy's was the only light in my office, and I liked that just fine.

See, I may not _like_ my job, but I try to do it well. There are dozens of other private eyes in this city, and they're all trying to get enough business to pay the rent. So if I don't do what I do well, my customers, clients, whatever you want to call them... they'll find someone else.

I'd rather be a private eye than a hobo, thank you very much.

So I keep my office clean and neat -- if there's one thing customers don't like, I've found, it's a messy private eye, because someone whose office is sloppy probably won't handle your case very well -- but I also try to make it what people will expect. Moody. Not terribly well-lit. My name stenciled in white on the door over the legend "Private Eye" and a drawing of an all-seeing eye.

I do all this because it makes people want to trust me more. Be honest. What private eye would you trust -- the one whose office looks straight out of the movies, or the one whose office is crammed somewhere unusual, or has a weird style to it?

Besides, the office helps: I don't look much like a private eye myself. No dark, brooding eyes under the brim of a tattered old hat for me -- I have blue eyes, which I have been told are light and untroubled, and when I do wear a hat it's in good condition, although it isn't the latest fashion. I'm not old and worn, either -- I look younger than I am, except that my hair's going grey at the temples.

With a job like mine, yours would too.

I could go on -- I'm not as rumpled as most private eyes, I wear glasses, I'm a good shot with ten different kinds of gun... But I sense you'd rather hear me talk atmospherically about murder.

Fine then. I know I tend to go off on tangents -- just stop me if I do, would you?

So it was night, at the end of the month. I won't say which month, because they all feel the same to me... especially in this city. It's always hot.

I was sitting behind my desk, wondering if anyone was really going to come to me with a case at this time of night. Crime happens all the time, I know, but people rarely go seeking out a private eye that late.

If I'd just given up then, none of it would ever have happened, and I wouldn't be sitting here right now. I'd probably be upstairs, waiting for someone to walk in my door.

But I hung on fifteen extra minutes beyond when I usually go downstairs, thinking of all the bills I would have to pay that month... if I were lucky I could put some of them off, but some of them I needed to pay, and soon.

So I stuck around, looking at the way the light from the sign reflected off various metallic objects in the room -- the file cabinet, the typewriter, the handles on my desk drawers, the doorknob. Maybe I needed to get shades so the light wouldn't shine in all the time... but then again, I liked the look of the light. Much better than the harsh light of the cheap lightbulbs I bought and used when I could.

More atmospheric.

Then I heard footsteps on the stairs. I'd have gotten up and reached for the shotgun, but they were too steady to be a drunk's footsteps. And besides -- the footsteps were the click-click of high heels, and somehow I _knew_ that whoever was wearing them was sober as a judge. Call it extra-sensory perception if you want.

So I just sat there in the dark, waiting as the footsteps got closer to my door. My office is the first door on the left after the stairs. Across the hall is a dentist's office, and next to that is allegedly a pawn shop, but everyone knows it's actually a bookie's place of business. (Because why would a legitimate pawn shop be on the second floor above a bar? Well, that's why the guy became a bookie.) Maybe she was going there.

It was not to be. She stopped in front of my door, a feminine shape outlined against the frosted glass, evidently considering if she wanted to come in or not.

I prayed that she would -- this dame, whoever she was, had made it this far. _Come on, lady..._

She knocked on the door, waited a moment, then turned the doorknob and stepped in, closing the door behind her.

"Herr Batchelder?" Her voice was quiet, but firm. Accented, but not strongly. Probably confident in her own strength, maybe had hesitated before seeking me out at all.

Whatever she needed a private eye for, I doubted it was stolen jewelry.

"That's me," I said, and got out of my chair, went around the desk to shake her hand. Strong grip, stronger than usual for a woman. She was dressed well, hair cropped short in a bob haircut that had been fashionable a decade ago, dress plain black but cut short. High heels, crystal stud earrings. She had money, but not a lot. Maybe liked the high life, but knew how to live within her means. "And you are?"

"Doctor Marian Janssen." I retreated back behind the desk, gave her a chance to sit down. I'd heard her name before, somewhere. "I work at Itexicon; perhaps you've heard of them?"

She had to be kidding. Without Itexicon this city would have gone down the tubes a long time ago -- with them, we're keeping afloat. "Yeah," I said. "I've heard the name before."

She folded her hands in her lap. "I thought you might have."

"So why are you here, Doctor Janssen?" Normally the first thing people say to me is "You gotta help me find this guy" or "Some punk stole my necklace" or something. They don't ask if I'm the guy with his name on the door. "You lose something?"

She fixed her eyes on me and said icily, "I have lost much, Herr Batchelder."

I winced. Ouch. I should've picked up on that -- with that accent, I should've known where she'd come from, and why. It's my business, after all. "Well... why are you here, then?"

She brushed a strand of hair out of her face, tucked it behind her ear, then spoke. Like most of my customers when they tell me why they've come to me, it was a long speech broken up by pauses. "Last week -- yes, a week ago today -- I came into my office and found it in a -- a shambles. My colleagues on the project discovered the same in their offices. Nothing had been taken -- except our notes, which is curious, as they would not be understood by most laymen."

She made eye contact -- she'd been staring at my desk as she spoke, and now she fixed those intense eyes on me. "I need your help to find the notes and the man who stole them." She smiled -- a brief, hard smile. "I am sure you understand my need for urgency and the utmost discretion."

I nodded. "Of course, Doctor Janssen." I'd met well-educated college girls who took longer to get to the point than she did. I liked this dame already. "May I ask you some questions?"

"Certainly, Herr Batchelder." Her hand rose a little, as if to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, or to play with her earrings, but she forced it down into her lap again.

"Why not go to the police? Why a private eye?" The police, while some of them are scumbags, are professionals. And the law is on their side.

"I was referred to you by a friend who said you were the man for the job."

Well, all right then. I don't get that a lot. Not many repeat customers in my line of work.

"Why did you wait a week to... find someone to help you?" The longer you wait to look for stolen property, the less likely it is that you'll ever find it. She probably knew that, as smart as she was.

"We had to ensure that the notes had, in fact, been taken." Quick, snappy answer. Doctor Janssen was shaping up to be a model customer -- but I had a feeling that this case was going to be a hard one. Just a hunch. "And I had to request permission to take the case to an outside contractor. Itexicon is a very... private company."

"I think I get the picture," I said. "I know it's been a week, but can I come scout out the -- the offices?"

"I was about to ask if you would feel comfortable coming to Itexicon tomorrow." She rose from her chair.

"Doctor Janssen -- you'll have to provide transportation." I don't own a car. Why would I? No one does in this part of town. They cost too much, upkeep is hell if you're not mechanically-minded, and unless it's a bucket of rust held together with bolts, someone _will_ steal it before the engine even has a chance to cool down.

Also, I don't have a license.

"I'll have a car sent for you in the morning. In the meantime, Herr Batchelder..." She turned back to face me, the neon light striking harshly on the planes of her face, casting half of it into shadow. "Don't tell anyone that Itexicon has chosen to consult with you. Please. It's for your own good."

With that, she was gone -- just a shadow behind the door, then footsteps tapping on the stairs.

I drew a pack of cigarettes out of my shirt pocket and lit up. Every private eye I've ever known smoked -- not just because it's part of the image, but because it calms them down.

There are some things a man just can't deal with on his own.

I leaned against the edge of the desk, already wishing she'd never come in. Finding lost jewelry, as boring as it is, doesn't get me involved with companies as big and dangerous as Itexicon.

Now _there_ is a bunch of amoral bastards I'd hoped never to work with.

See, as much as Itexicon coming to town saved us from the Depression, no one knows exactly what they _do_ in that big grey building in the center of town.

Or if they do know, they don't talk about it.

But Itexicon makes money. Lots of money. They're rolling in dough, to use the old cliché.

If nothing else, I was going to be paid _extremely_ well for this job.

Was it worth the money?

That's the ultimate question here: if the payoff was worth what I had to do to get it.

I'm not sure if it was.


	2. 2

2

Just as she'd promised, a car appeared out of nowhere the next morning, at about two minutes to nine. (Well, I allow that maybe my watch doesn't quite keep accurate time. You wouldn't either if you'd seen what that watch has.) Nice late-model car, too -- plain black, with dark windows. Kind of like cops drive, I guess, although there was no siren.

One of the windows in the back rolled down, and there was Doctor Janssen. "Get in, please," she said curtly.

"Sure, doc," I snapped back, and made my way awkwardly around the car to the passenger side, where I opened the door and got in.

The car was dark inside, with a faint smell of preservative. But it was a nice car all the same, the seats upholstered in a soft plush fabric, the suspension well-balanced.

Doctor Janssen didn't say a word.

I tried to keep track in my head of where we were driving, just to pass the time -- I knew that, unless something had gone very wrong, we were headed to Itexicon's main building, a hulk of a concrete monstrosity that dominates what they would call downtown in a different city.

So instead of that, I switched to thinking of how I was going to approach this case.

I'm not Sherlock Holmes. Sure, enough years on the job have given me the ability to look at someone, or hear them talk, and make a pretty solid guess of their personality, their job, or what have you. But any schmuck can do that -- just most of 'em _don't_.

Stolen notes. Huh. Forgive me for being just another member of the _hoi polloi_, but I couldn't see why you'd want to steal _notes_. Blueprints, maybe. Notes, nah.

See, your average criminal -- okay, so he's not as dumb as most people seem to think. But your _average_ criminal is pretty lazy. If he steals a blueprint, he's more motivated than most -- that, or he knows a guy who'll pay good money for that blueprint.

Most criminals, when faced with, say, important notes worth more than all the tea in China alongside a working prototype of a machine worth maybe an eighth of the tea in China... they'll take the prototype. Sure, sure, notes are easier to carry and conceal, but you can make easier money off the prototype.

So I already knew something about the criminal -- they were smarter than your average bear. Maybe someone scientifically-minded -- maybe even a scientist for a rival company.

That made me wonder a few things.

One -- what was the project the stolen notes were for? That was just plain old curiosity talking, although it might have some relevance to the case in the end.

Two -- a more traditional private eye question -- was anyone at Itexicon dissatisfied with their job? Dissatisfied enough to leave? Maybe even dissatisfied enough to steal some notes on their way out?

Except there was one problem with that idea -- Itexicon had no real competition. Well, none that _I_ knew about. And I'm not exactly the most well-versed in the dealings of large companies -- I vastly prefer the dark alleys of the city.

They're more fun, anyway.

When I was younger, I sometimes thought maybe I'd like to be a doctor or a surgeon or something. I wanted to save lives, or at least make a difference in them.

What I didn't figure was that, as I got older, I fell more and more in love with the city. Operating rooms are sterile, white places. Boring.

Cities... ah, the city is the place for me, _mon ami_. Filthy with years of ingrained smoke and assorted garbage. Reeking to high heaven of God alone knows what. Gutters running with substances only distantly related to water, cigarette butts, hell, even blood on some nights.

In a hospital, the problems I'd have to solve would be individual ones, and not always with a clean solution. Like my current job, kind of. But they'd be so much more _impersonal. _People don't get shot performing surgery on some poor schmuck.

I guess maybe what I'm trying to say here is that I like the _atmosphere_ of being a private eye. Maybe I should've been a doctor after all -- I'm told my temperament doesn't suit detecting, that my handwriting's a chickenscratch mess, and about a million other things that people seem to think mean I really should've been a doctor.

To hell with that, I say. I'm a private eye, and as far as I'm concerned I always have been. I was born to be.

Anyway. Forgive my digression -- you don't mind anyway, do you? Nah, of course you don't.

I was right, in the end -- as I'd known I'd be. A ten-year-old probably could have told you where we were going.

So I wasn't surprised in the least when the car slowed to a stop outside... you guessed it, a monolith of an ugly grey building in the center of town.

The funny thing about Itexicon's headquarters (well, besides that it's _huge_) is that the rest of the city is crowded with skyscrapers.

There aren't any in that district. Itexicon didn't have them knocked down -- they just weren't there in the first place.

So the first time you see it, on your way into town, it's pretty impressive, if I do say so myself. Big concrete monstrosity of a building, looks almost like a prison or something, except it's smack in the middle of downtown, so obviously it's not a prison.

According to legend, Itexicon went all-out and got some superstar architect (yeah, I know, superstar architect, how likely does _that_ sound?) to design the building. They got a big concrete box. And they _still_ thought they got their money's worth.

So don't blame a guy for maybe not thinking the highest of the company.

Marian hustled me out of the car and into the building before I really got a chance to gawk. (Here's why: the Itexicon building, impressive and huge as hell as it is, is surrounded by slums. Cheap whores, cheap drugs, cheap beer, whatever you want, they sell it there for cheap.)

The lobby was just what I'd expected: spacious, kind of empty inside, lots of white and concrete, a little furniture (which looked out-of-place but comfortable).

"Doctor Marian Janssen and visitor," she said crisply to the receptionist, who was a bottle-blonde ex-dame somewhere in her forties. She eyed me from rumpled head to dirty foot and shoved a visitor's pass in my direction -- just a slip of dirty, worn paper that had evidently seen much use, with VISITOR printed on it in large, elegant handwriting.

I pinned it to the brim of my hat (yeah, I don't usually wear them, but it had been wet that morning, and I'd opted to clap a worn, beaten old topper on my head -- I think it was brown when I bought it, but I'm not sure), and Marian took off again -- as soon as she stopped walking I took the opportunity to mutter in her ear.

"You've got a swanky place here, haven't you?"

"We spared no expense," she replied, and pressed the button to summon the elevator.

Evidently not. The elevator was one of the old-fashioned cage types, complete with well-dressed attendant. The wrought iron practically _shone_.

"Three, please," Doctor Janssen said, and the attendant -- a lanky teenager with clear skin and brown hair the color of untroubled country earth -- pushed the corresponding button. His uniform was just as nice as the elevator he ran, I saw: grey with black piping and a neat little cap with the brim tilted over his eyes. All of it, save the cap, neatly pressed and clean -- I had the idea that the kid would smell like laundry detergent if I got closer.

Whatever they were doing, Itexicon made good money, I was sure of that. And they paid their employees well.

So money wasn't the issue, if our criminal here was a dissatisfied employee.

The elevator came to a well-greased, silent stop at our floor, and I tipped my hat to the attendant as we made our exit. He smiled at me, and it gave me the creeps -- under the brim of that cap he had quiet, watchful grey eyes. Gave me the willies.

"So where are we going, anyway?"

She shot a disdainful glance my way. "Didn't I tell you?"

"No, actually." Should I have my hat off indoors? I couldn't remember -- it had been a long time since I'd worn the hat inside someplace that didn't have holes in the roof. I kept it on, figuring it was safer to risk a faux pas and keep my visitor pass in sight.

"You are in a top-secret installation, Herr Batchelder," she said, voice quiet and blurred by that faint touch of accent I'd noticed yesterday. German, I'd thought then -- it certainly made sense, with her name and the way she spoke -- but there was something a little more exotic to it than that. "It would do you well to have a vague idea of where you are going."

"All right then. Tell me."

She sighed, as if I were putting a great burden on her. "I'm taking you to my office. Most of the team was doing field work this week, and they're not back yet. But I and one of my colleagues chose to remain behind. You'll meet him while you're here." She smiled. "I should tell you now -- he is an interesting man, that's for sure. But brilliant. Do not underestimate him."

"I sure won't, lady," I muttered. "If you'd just introduce us already." Forgive me for snapping at a member of the opposite sex -- it was early yet, and me still without my coffee.

"It would be my pleasure," she replied, and opened the door to a tiny-seeming cupboard of an office. Well, by Itexicon standards, anyway -- given that we'd just taken what had to be a solid ten or fifteen minutes to walk from the centrally-located elevator to her office, I'd expected it to be a little, y'know, _bigger_.

"This is my office, Herr Batchelder," she said, explaining what needed no explanation -- as if the nameplate on the door weren't enough of a clue, the office itself obviously belonged to a woman. Not that it was decorated in pink and lacy frills or anything. It just had that subtle feminine touch to it.

And it _was_ in a notable disarray. I've seen plenty of messy offices in my time, and all of them have an underlying order of some sort. Here, it was obvious that not too long ago, that order had been thrown severely out of whack, and that the comfortable chaos Doctor Janssen preferred was only just regaining power.

"Yeah, I can see that. You have a laboratory? What's through that door?" I asked, indicating a door set in the far wall. Compared to some ratholes I've had the pleasure of living and/or working in over the years, her office was actually a nice, comfortable size. Just not compared to how huge the Itexicon building was.

_I wonder what they do with the extra space_?

I'd have to investigate that at some point.

"Yes. It's a laboratory," she said stiffly.

_Thanks, Captain Obvious._

"Can I go in?"

She seemed slightly taken aback, but growled, "Fine."

I pushed through the door, noting the strangely reinforced frame as I went. Why would you need to reinforce a doorframe like that?

The lab itself was spotlessly clean and tidy, smelling faintly of Lysol and a preservative of some sort. The floor was white linoleum, in good repair, the walls, tiled, the ceiling, plain. There were lab tables scattered here and there around the room, mostly empty save for one, which sported a large cage where several happy-looking white mice scampered to their hearts' content.

Just as I was preparing to turn around and go back into Doctor Janssen's office, a door opened (from the glimpse of tall shelves I got, I thought it was a supply closet of some sort) and a tall man in a white lab coat stepped out.

I gave him a quick look-over -- standard practice in my line of work. He wasn't bad to look at either -- tall, with a lanky frame, he had a mess of dark blond hair that didn't seem to have seen a scissors for quite a while, and clear, untroubled blue eyes behind little round glasses. He looked to be about my age, with tiny crows'-feet wrinkles clustered at the edges of his eyes and subtle laugh-lines framing his mouth.

If the criminal I was looking for _was_ a disgruntled employee, I knew instantly that it wasn't going to be him. He was obviously happy with his job, and looked like he was likely to be the contented, placid sort of man anyway.

He was concentrating on juggling a bag of feed pellets and an open jug of some sort of clear chemical when I saw him, so it was another few seconds before _he_ saw_ me_. When he did, his eyes widened. "Hello!" he called, shutting the door behind him with an idle kick of his heel. "I'll be with you in a moment, all right? Thank you!"

Definitely not my criminal.

All right, all right, so maybe I was judging too soon, you're saying to yourself. Maybe this is the guy who turns out to be the criminal in the end.

I tell you right now: I'm a private eye. I know what I'm doing, and I knew from the start that this innocent-faced man with the mussed blond hair wasn't a criminal. The closest he came to crime was when he listened to the radio and heard that the FBI was looking for some bank robber, or maybe when he went to the post office and saw the wall of Most Wanted posters.

I just _knew_ that. I believe in experience, and experience was telling me that a guy like this was about as likely to get ticked at his boss and leave as I am to win the lottery.

He set the bag of feed pellets and the jug of chemical down next to the cage (the mice squeaked happily at this), and immediately came over to shake my hand. "Hi, I'm Roland," he said. "You're the private investigator Marian was talking about, I'm guessing?"

His English had a wonderfully natural, cultured sound to it, but there was still something quietly stilted about it. Probably an immigrant, then.

"That's me," I said, and shook his hand. (His handshake was exactly and precisely orthodox -- maybe his grip was a little strong, but other than that it was exactly what you'd expect of a handshake.) "Jeb Batchelder, private eye. At your service."

He grinned widely. "Nice to meet you." He glanced in the direction of Doctor Janssen's office and added, "Well, technically I'm Doctor Roland ter Borcht, but that sounds so official, doesn't it? You're not here on official business, are you?"

As I might have mentioned, though he seemed to be my age, there was something cheerfully youthful about the guy. Innocent, almost. It only made me like him more.

"'Course not," I told him, adjusting my hat with one hand. "Does Itexicon often hire private investigators?"

"I've never known them to, but there's much I don't know about Itexicon," he replied. "If you're not here on official business, then you can go ahead and call me Roland, I guess."

"My pleasure." I usually ask to be called by my last name when I'm on a case, but I went ahead and added, "And you can call me Jeb."

"Glad to."

Now, from what I've said of him, you might be getting the idea that this fine fellow was a bit simple-minded. He wasn't -- just _cheerful_, almost irritatingly so. Worldly hardships seemed hardly to touch him. On the surface, he was happy to see everyone, eager to please.

That didn't, however, preclude the presence of a much darker underlayer to the man. Maybe the fact that we were in this environment was preventing such an underlayer from showing itself -- I'd have to test that theory, I decided. But how?

As it turned out, he provided me the opportunity. Having nothing else to do, I leaned against the counter as he funneled more feed pellets into the little tray inside the cage, mixed a few droplets of the chemical in the jug into each of the water tubes, and... played with the mice?

Well, okay. Not played, but he didn't jerk his hand away when one of the mice rubbed up against it (as God is my witness, _exactly_ like a cat would), and even smiled a bit, laughing under his breath.

Why'd I stick around? Couldn't tell you. I found his company refreshing -- and I convinced myself that I was gathering information about the case, too.

Who was I kidding, though? I just needed a break from the soulless hallways of Itexicon, from Doctor Janssen's weird formalities and insults, from... everything else.

Besides, I _like_ mice.

My patience was rewarded -- once Doctor ter Borcht had shuffled the bag of feed pellets and jug of mystery chemical back from whence they came, he shot me a shy, curious look.

"Mister Batchelder -- pardon me, Jeb -- I'm afraid that I have other business to conduct today. According to Marian you wanted to conduct an interview with me?"

"Yeah." Not particularly, actually, but now that I'd heard the idea it sounded valuable.

"I don't think it very expedient," he said softly, "to conduct that interview here. Might I suggest that we meet somewhere else?"

"Sure. Where?"

"Noon. There is a coffeehouse across the street. Lily's? You'll find me there." He smiled. "Thank you for your understanding. I look forward to your company."

I crept out the door after that stilted little speech of his. Doctor Janssen was still in her office. God knows how she'd been occupying herself while I chatted with my new acquaintance.

"All is well?" she inquired.

"Yeah. Your Doctor ter Borcht is a helluva guy." To say the least. Just on first impression, he was far more charismatic than anyone else I was likely to meet in this creepshow of a building. Itexicon was _not_ growing on me with further exposure, believe you me.

"Most people have that opinion of him. Would you like a moment to inspect my office? I have an errand I must run. I'll be back momentarily."

"Sure," I muttered, as she fluttered out the door to the hall.

I sat down heavily in her chair -- she wouldn't mind my borrowing it for a few minutes, surely, when she'd just given me permission to rifle through her things. Okay, so she'd said "inspect my office", but that _does_ boil down to "rifle through my things". I'm a private eye. I know that kind of thing.

I rubbed my forehead with the back of one hand -- I hadn't worn my glasses that day, and my head was starting to ache with the effort of focusing on objects too far away for me to make out clearly, i.e. about five feet. It was ten in the morning, and I was beat.

When Doctor Janssen came back, I was going to make a point of asking her for some aspirin.

I leaned back in her chair, turning over what I'd heard so far from all two employees of Itexicon I'd had the opportunity to exchange words with. Doctor Janssen was tight-lipped, sharp, slightly sarcastic -- Doctor ter Borcht, by contrast, seemed youthful (almost to the point of childishness), willfully naïve, and... oh, hey, wait a minute.

I cracked a grin, then laughed quietly to myself.

He spoke English quite well, so there was no reason for his final speech to me to be as stilted as it had been.

Most of the people I'd met just would've taken a lot less time to express what he had in that speech:

'I think the place is bugged. Let's meet up somewhere else to talk.'

Maybe all the guy needed was a lesson or three in brevity.

Mood considerably lightened, I set to work.


	3. 3

3

Before long, Doctor Janssen showed back up, and she was more than eager to show me out of the building. I made no attempt to resist -- as I've said, that place gave me the creeps.

I took a good look around as I left the building, trying to get a better sense of the place as a whole. The long halls and corridors I got a glimpse down all seemed to stretch on forever.

Itexicon, it seemed, was bigger on the inside than it was on the outside.

I'd have to come back sometime, see what they were doing with all that extra space.

I still had two hours to kill after Doctor Janssen shuffled me back to my office, so I set back off for Itexicon, this time on foot, to familiarize myself with the area.

The exercise was a success: I got a feel for the slums surrounding Itexicon. The area of town where my office was back then was kind of run-down back then (it's still run-down, actually -- some things never change), but obviously it had once been somewhere worth living. Or at least it had been somewhere decent people wouldn't be ashamed to be seen.

The area by Itexicon... it was no wonder Doctor Janssen hadn't wanted me to get a good look at the place.

Well, perhaps I exaggerate. I'd seen worse in my time -- oh yeah, I'd seen worse. Lived in worse, too. But I'd also seen far, far better.

It was, to be as accurate as I can, a filthy slum of the worst sort.

This city's gotten a little more gentrified as time has gone on, but believe me, there are still quite a few bad areas. And there were even more back then.

The slum surrounding Itexicon was just sad -- truly a miserable place to live. If you could call it living.

I got to the coffeehouse (in truth, it was a diner) just before noon. Just as the good doctor had said, it was called Lily's, and it was just across the street from Itexicon -- a small, two-story building of stained red brick, huddling in the shadow of a big block of concrete that looked like something out of a German Expressionist film. Or like a prison.

Maybe once, when I was a boy, Lily's had had a view onto a park -- but now its only view was of a stern, depressingly modern building that looked more like a swankified version of Purgatory.

Ah, Progress.

I waited outside Lily's, hands in my pockets, keeping my eye out across the street for Doctor ter Borcht. At two minutes past noon I saw him darting out of the tall front doors -- it had to be him, given how tall the indistinct figure was, the way it moved, and that there was almost no one else on the street. He glanced both ways, then hurried across to meet me.

The first thing I noticed was how plain he seemed without the lab coat: hatless and in shirtsleeves for the mid-day heat, he looked like any other all-American blond man venturing out for his lunch break. His glasses weren't in evidence, and the corners of his eyes crinkled slightly as he squinted against the sun.

"Shall we go inside?" he ventured.

"Yeah, sure." I realized that he must have thought I was staring -- and well, all right, so I had been. But not in a personal-attraction way -- when I'm on a case I make a habit of familiarizing myself with the physical descriptions of everyone involved, in case it becomes relevant later.

I like to be prepared, what can I say?

I let him choose a booth, and was favorably impressed when he picked one in a back corner. I don't eat in a lot of diners, but I know that if you're in the back corner, it's far easier to watch other people around you.

That, and it provides a little privacy. Not much, but some.

We ordered coffee -- black for me, with cream for him -- and I tried to think of questions to ask him before remembering that technically _he_ was the one who'd asked _me_ to come here.

"So what do you want?" I asked him, blunt as ever.

He glanced mildly at me, turning his gaze from the window. "I thought you were the one who requested the interview."

"It seemed to me like you were." I looked at my coffee rather than make eye contact with him -- nice as his eyes were (I must admit I'm a sucker for a pair of beautiful eyes, whether they belong to a man or a woman), he never seemed to have mastered the part of making eye contact where you occasionally have to look _away_.

It was kind of disquieting.

He raised an eyebrow. "Well, either way, you must have _some_ questions for me."

"That I do." I took a sip of my coffee, set it back down on the table.

"So ask away."

His personality seemed to have totally changed since that morning -- where the Doctor ter Borcht I'd met then had been slightly detached, this man seemed far more intelligent (if you'll excuse the backhanded compliment), far more focused, far more charismatic.

"All right." I looked up from my napkin (I'd been idly ripping it into shreds as I thought -- not the best of nervous habits, but it beats chewing my nails). "When did you leave Europe, and why?" I'd almost said 'Germany', but stopped myself. For all I knew he was from somewhere else, though the faint accent I could detect sounded German enough to me -- he could be Austrian, for one thing.

"A few years ago." He raised one hand, as if to adjust his glasses, and returned it to the table instead. "Doctor Janssen and I came together," he said, in a slow, stilted way, as if it were difficult for him to say. "We had been colleagues. I could not leave her there, and she could not leave me." He sighed, and looked at me, those sharp blue eyes unnaturally direct in their gaze -- I felt as if he could see right through me. "Mister Batchelder -- how much do you know of the current situation in Europe?"

"More than I'd like to," I told him honestly. Most people didn't care to pay much attention to world events, not when the United States was in so much trouble itself. I did my best to keep up with things -- sometimes it figured into my job, after all -- and I'd watched with silent interest as more and more European immigrants appeared year after year. In the beginning I couldn't figure why there were so _many_ of them, but eventually I figured it out.

When I was small -- well, every few years until the end of the Great War -- there were always lots of Jewish immigrants, usually Russian. It took me a while until I understood _why_ they'd come here -- I'd asked back then, and my parents had done their best to explain. Their government was chasing them out -- they had to go.

And that was what was happening then -- the same sort of thing again, just not as explicit. This time around they were of all different creeds, many different races -- and all running from Hitler.

I'd be running too, if I were them.

He looked at me for a long moment, then smiled a thin, grim little smile. "Then I think you understand why I left."

"Yeah, I think I get the general picture." I cleared my throat, took another sip of coffee.

He kept looking at me, then suddenly laughed. "I don't know if you do," he said. "But let me say this: neither of us sympathized with the new regime. I couldn't see myself in a Nazi uniform -- never."

I could just envision it -- imagination is a gift of mine. It wouldn't have suited him.

He shrugged. "That's why I left."

Strictly in a literal sense, it didn't hold water -- but... it made sense. They hadn't been able to stay in Germany with Hitler in power, so they'd left. Simple enough.

Except a conflict of conscience is never that simple -- you can make it sound easy, but it's always difficult to handle.

Does it seem like I'm saying he was lying? He wasn't. The world was a dark place back then, and it was hard for any one man (well, unless he happened to be a poet, and even they had a hard time of it) to really express the dread that fueled every decision anyone made. Things weren't as clear-cut back then as some people make them out to have been.

Doctor ter Borcht came the closest to codifying some of that vague feeling: morally, he couldn't put up with Nazi Germany, and so he left. Simple enough, but try finding a man straightforward enough to _say_ that, not just intimate it.

I had to admire the man.

"So... what's this project you're working on?" I asked.

"The one that the stolen notes refer to? Sorry, I'm afraid I can't tell you," he replied.

"Or what, you'd have to kill me?" I took a sip from my coffee -- when had it gotten cold? Someone had failed to alert me to that situation.

"I'm not sure I'd be permitted to take such drastic action."

I _had_ to laugh at that. "Well, can you tell me if there's any reason someone might be interested in those notes?"

"Enough to steal them? Not that I can think of," he said, staring moodily into the depths of his own coffee cup. "Unless they could interpret them, and that would be a challenge."

"Well, what if they could interpret the notes? Just speaking hypothetically," I added hastily.

"Assuming they had the resources, they might be able to duplicate our results." He glanced around, then leaned across the table towards me. "And just between you and I, Mister Batchelder... if whoever has our notes has the resources and the time to duplicate our experimental results... well, I'm not certain, but it might not end well." He drew back, smiled at me in a way I couldn't interpret.

"So your notes haven't been returned?" I had to ask. If they had, that could mean, say, that whoever had stolen the notes had copied them for their own use. Or it could mean that they'd decided the notes weren't worth keeping.

"Well, no. If they had been I doubt Marian would have consulted you at all. And then we wouldn't be having this conversation, would we?" He rubbed the bridge of his nose, an absent nervous gesture that, to me, betrayed him as being anxious. Over what, I didn't know.

"Probably not." I paused, trying to collect my thoughts, and checked my watch. Half-past noon. I didn't have anywhere to be. Did Doctor ter Borcht?

He'd evidently had the same thought -- he stared nervously at his watch. "I should go. Doctor Janssen will be expecting me."

I put out my hand for the check. "Yeah? Thanks for the interview."

"We'll have to continue it some other day," he said. "Perhaps we can make an appointment?"

"I'm always free," I told him.

The waitress handed the check to me, and Doctor ter Borcht snatched it out of my hand. "I'll cover it."

"Thanks." I adjusted my hat and got out of the booth, then followed him to the door.

He turned to me before crossing the street. "Mister Batchelder? Would this evening be all right for you?"

I wrapped my coat a little tighter around me. "Yeah, sure. When do you want to meet? And where?"

"I'll see you at your office. At six." Yeah, he definitely seemed anxious -- odd, that. Could Doctor Janssen really be what had him so on edge?

"I'll be there." I made the effort to smile at him. "You can call me Jeb if you want."

"I will." He smiled back. "I'll see you tonight, then."

"I'll be there." I never go much of anywhere nights -- I'm too old, for one thing. And my budget won't stand for it -- someday I want to retire, move somewhere warm with a white beach and palm trees, and the only thing I want getting in the way of that is my statistically unlikely early death.

"Thank you, Jeb."

He turned away from me and crossed the street back over to Itexicon -- just another man in his shirtsleeves, headed back to work.

I admit it: even then, he fascinated me. In the lab, he'd seemed cheerfully oblivious, and yet in a brief conversation in a _diner_, of all places, he'd demonstrated that he was, in fact, quite eloquent, possessed of a decent sense of humor, and altogether a charming man. I fully looked forward to an extended interview with him -- to use an antiquated turn of phrase, I'd be delighted to share the pleasure of his company.

Yeah, so I hardly knew the guy -- but consider where I was in the world. I regularly had dealings with ladies of bad moral standing (to put it mildly), common criminals -- the muck of society. The dregs.

Not exactly stimulating company, as I'm sure you can imagine.

Doctor ter Borcht was affable, had to be decently intelligent just given where he worked, and to top it all off he was comparatively easy on the eyes.

There had been something about his appearance that had bothered me, though -- what was it? I'm a private eye. I should _know_ these things, right off the bat. It bothered me that I couldn't remember straightaway.

And then it hit me, as I stood there on the sidewalk with my hands in the pockets of my battered coat.

It was his tie. (And let me say pre-emptively: I'd never thought that a plain blue tie like that could be the cause of my destruction.)

Now, bear with me here. You can tell quite a bit about a man by his tie. It expresses something about his personality, I've found -- no, really.

Doctor ter Borcht's tie was rather plain -- a staid navy blue. If anything, it complimented his eyes. Probably went with everything he owned, and it had the well-worn look of a tie worn often.

And yet...

A plain blue tie is usually a sign of plainness on the part of the wearer. It's not a particularly exciting color -- not daring, not visually obvious. It's just _there_.

There was something strange about Doctor ter Borcht's tie. Blue it might be, but... to me, it just looked _different._ It was the kind of tie that was meant to be misused -- the kind of tie meant to fasten wrists to bedposts, and where had _that_ thought come from?

Immaterial.

I was sure of one thing, though: something was _off_ about that tie, and that probably indicated something about Doctor ter Borcht.

I'd have to ask him about it tonight.


	4. 4

4

I spent the afternoon at the library, interrogating the reference librarians in an attempt to find out if they knew where immigration records are kept.

They did not.

I had -- still have -- a special relationship with those ladies. They know me well, and in return for their help when I'm on a case, they're willing to take certain liberties for me.

So I made a few promises, and the ladies swore they'd do their best to get some records together for me -- because I was looking for just two records, instead of giving them a general set of parameters, they said the search was actually possible to perform.

They promised to have the files sent over to my office once they had them, so I wished them a good day and left.

I tipped my hat to them as I made my exit. Always does a man good to be polite to the people who help him, I believe.

As six o' clock approached, I found myself in my office with the blinds drawn, feet on the desk and a cigarette parked in the corner of my mouth (I'd never mastered talking around a cig, but considering the office was occupied by me, myself, and I, that was just fine).

My trenchcoat hung ready on the coat rack in the corner (normally I avoid wearing the thing, but it had started raining around three that afternoon, and damned if I was going to get soaked to the skin while on a case), and my hat sat on the corner of the desk.

All I was waiting on was the good doctor.

As it got closer and closer to six o' clock -- well, I won't say I started to worry, but I did start to get a little... tense. He'd been almost perfectly on time that afternoon for our meeting at the diner.

Where was he now?

I waited around for a few minutes after six, sure that at any moment I'd hear footsteps on the stairs, then a knock on my door.

As it turned out, I was right. It was... let's say ten past six, and I heard someone really beating feet up the stairs. They're noisy anyway, so you don't even have to walk really hard to make a good old-fashioned cacophony -- but try to run up them and it sounds like Judgment Day. Especially when the rain's dripping down the window-glass, the neon light smears into a blur of color, and there's no light to make the world seem a little more tolerable.

So I heard pounding footsteps, and then someone _yanked_ my door open -- see, normally people wait around a little outside, fidget around, then timidly open the door. This guy just burst on in.

Yeah, you guessed it -- Doctor ter Borcht, back again. He was dressed fairly well this time -- suit coat instead of shirtsleeves, wearing a hat.

I took my feet off the desk. "Normally people _knock_."

"Mister Batchelder," he said, before briefly pausing to collect himself. "You have to come to Itexicon."

"Someone put you up to this? I thought we were meeting for an interview." I put out my cig, stubbing it in the cigar box I use for an ashtray.

"That's what I thought too." He rubbed the brim of his hat between his fingers. "Perhaps we can still find time for that."

"Yeah? What happened?" He might be trying to stall for time, or he might just be talking around his point instead of cutting directly to the chase -- a common affliction, and one often suffered by yours truly. I'm getting better, though.

He put his hand down by his side and smiled in an odd, tense way that made me realize that whatever it was, it wasn't good. Not by a long stretch.

"There's a dead man," he said, "in my office."

_I looked away for a second, and suddenly, out of nowhere, there he was_, I imagined him saying.

I cracked a grin. "All right. Police been called?" Why are you bothering me about it?

Yeah, it was my job -- but it was after five and I was on a case. I considered myself to be done working for the night... even though I had plans to interview Doctor ter Borcht, it didn't seem that those were going to come to fruition.

"I left that in Marian's hands. We should get over there." He didn't say why, but I suspected it involved something I'd heard about Itexicon: apparently, they really _hated_ it when something less-than-lovely went public about them.

That would probably include corpses showing up in scientists' offices. And the best way to prevent things like that from going public is to quietly ditch the stiff, prevent the media from noticing, and eliminate all evidence.

Which is practically anathema and blasphemy to a guy in my profession, so... evidently the good doctor _knew_ I'd want to get a look at the dead guy before he got whisked away to the landfill or the river.

Good man.

"Yeah? How're we going to do that?" I don't own a car, as you've doubtless noticed by this point. Why bother?

"How do you think I got here?" he replied. "Get your coat and your hat. We'll take my car."

Said conveyance wasn't much of a vehicle. Well, maybe in the technical sense, if you were being charitable.

"You're sure it runs?" I gave it a long hard glance. It had the questionable looks of a car that's seen many years on the road, with not much professional maintenance. Once upon a time, it had been black, or a color like it, and now it was the color of bare metal. It was untouched by rust, though -- score one for Doctor ter Borcht. I like a man who takes good care of his car.

"Pretty damn." He gave the hood an affectionate thump with the heel of his hand, and I couldn't help but wince. He glanced over at me quizzically. "What, do you mind when I curse?"

The hell I did. "Yeah, of course." I executed my best satirical bow, although it was somewhat muffled by the trenchcoat -- which I didn't need, as the rain had stopped for the moment. I had a lingering suspicion it would be back, though -- seemed like a night for it. "I'm a good little Protestant altar boy, don't I look like it?"

"Altar boys are _Catholic_. Don't you know that?" He opened the door, turned the key, and the engine died.

I banged on the hood for him, and he shot me an appreciative glance.

"Get in." This time the car actually started when he turned the key -- possibly out of fear. Most likely out of fear, I'd say -- fear, and maybe respect.

I got in, closed the door, and we took off.

And I mean we took off. For a bucket of rust, Doctor ter Borcth's alleged car handled pretty well. Good acceleration, good steering, and he handled it all like a pro.

We were at the curb outside Itexicon inside ten minutes, which was a feat I wouldn't have considered possible in the evening traffic.

Somehow he pulled it off -- which might have had something to do with the fact that the man drove more than a little like a maniac.

Not that that's a bad thing, you know. Sometimes you need a guy like that to get you to where you need to be.

"All right," I said to him once we were standing on the sidewalk outside Itexicon. "What's our plan? You're going to get us in?"

"The receptionist goes home at five. We're fine."

If the stiff had been offed recently, that had probably been how the killer got in. Sure, the elevator attendant might've seen whoever did it, but... there were also stairs, and no one attended those.

So it was fully possible, then, to get into the building after five, make it up a few floors to where Doctor ter Borcht's office was, off your man, and then get back out again without anyone but the dead guy seeing you. (Which wouldn't be of any use to a guy like me, considering that the only guy who could tell me what you looked like would be singing hymns with Saint Peter before I even knew there was a body.)

Well. _If_ no one else was around to see you.

"So you were here when the stiff showed up?"

He touched the brim of his hat briefly -- definitely either a nervous habit or an ill-fitting hat. "Yes. I'd gone to get some coffee, and when I came back..."

_Yeah. Dead guy surprise_. I know the story -- of course I do. "Was anyone else here?"

"Marian was still around a while ago." He tilted his head to the side slightly, trying to remember. "She left at some point, I'm not sure when. But it was before half-past five, I'm sure of that."

"Why?" I was tempted to light up a butt, but restrained myself. I'd smoke later -- right now I needed all my attention on him.

"I fed the mice at half-past five, just like every evening, and I noted the time. Marian wasn't there at the time." He glanced over at me curiously.

"All right." I'd have to account for her whereabouts later, but that could wait until I'd seen the stiff -- as could determining motive, all that fun jazz.

For right now, all I wanted was a good hard look at the stiff -- maybe I wouldn't have time to get real in-depth with investigating it, but I could at least get a little done.

"Did you know the dead guy?" I had to ask.

He shook his head, put his hands in his pockets. "I'd never seen the man in my life."

"How much time am I gonna have with him?"

He looked surprised, then thought for a moment. "Half an hour, maybe... well," he admitted, "as long as you want, really. No one else will be in until tomorrow, I'll bet."

"All right then. Let's go." I wanted to get inside, out of the wet -- it was looking like it was going to start raining soon, and I'd rather be inside the boxy Itexicon building than outside getting pneumonia any day of the year.

We went inside.

The lobby was dark, electric lights dimmed or turned off entirely. It smelled faintly of cleaning products I couldn't name -- a maid must've been by, given the time of evening. I could only hope she'd not been up to the good doctor's office yet, or we'd be in for some trouble.

The elevator attendant had gone home, it seemed, but Doctor ter Borcht seemed quite at home taking on the job of operating the contraption, and we were up at his office in no time.

I've seen a few bodies in my time -- even one or two fresher than this. As corpses go... well, in my experience, they're all basically the same -- being that they're all _dead_.

"Mind if I borrow a pen?" I asked the good doctor. "I left mine at my office."

"Of course." He was out in the hall, as far as he could get from the stiff. I appreciated that -- gave me more room to work. "There's a Mason jar on the desk with some pencils in it, and you can use one of those."

"Thanks." They were all sharpened to a fine point, I noticed, and seemingly with a pocket knife -- the wastebasket by the desk had a layer of shavings over the crumpled papers. So Doctor ter Borcht liked to sharpen his own pencils.

I had my notebook with me -- I never go anywhere without it -- and I knelt down by the body to start taking my notes.

The stiff was -- had been -- a man somewhere between thirty and forty-five or so. His hair had been starting to grey and recede, but most of it was still a good, strong brown color. He'd been pale in life, but recently sunburned. A long scar, thin and faded with age, ran down his cheek and curled onto his chin.

As to his clothes -- he'd been nicely dressed for a day's work, though in worn clothes. His shirt was clean, except for some spots on the cuffs, and if he'd been wearing a tie it was nowhere to be seen. No coat. No hat. I turned out his pockets.

No wallet, but in the left pocket of his trousers there was a wad of money and a few cents change -- I didn't count it out immediately, but it looked like upwards of fifty dollars. I wondered what he'd wanted all that cash around for, and why he hadn't been carrying a wallet.

There was nothing else on the man, not even a wedding ring.

I noted it all down, then straightened back up. It was hardly half-past six, though to be honest there hadn't been much worth investigating with the corpse. He was dead, and didn't have many personal things on him, so there wasn't much I could do.

It was a shame I didn't have a camera. A photograph is much more faithful to life than the most accurate description.

But I was done with the poor stiff.

I counted out his money before putting it back in his pocket -- fifty-four dollars, thirty-nine cents. And no identification to tell me who he'd been in life.

What a pity.

"Doctor ter Borcht?" I called, closing my notebook and slipping it back into the pocket of my trenchcoat.

"You're finished?" He looked in at me. For a doctor, and a doctor who'd fled the new German government, he didn't seem to deal well with the dead. In that way, perhaps, he was younger than his years.

"I've done all I can." I brushed my hands against my trousers -- I knew they weren't dirty, but yet...

"Got what you needed, then." There was no question in his voice.

"I got what I came for. You're sure you don't know the man?"

He shook his head. "I've never seen him before. I told you that the first time you asked."

"Just making sure." I stepped out of his office and moved to shut the door behind me.

"Aren't you going to do something about the body?" He sounded a little horrified.

"The maid will find it in a few minutes. She'll call someone about it, it'll all be taken care of, and no one will ever know we were involved." I shrugged. "It all works out. Trust me, it'll be fine."

"If you say so." His eyes narrowed a little, but he stepped out of my way as I shut the door.

"Now let's get going," I said to him, taking off for the elevator. "I've still got an interview to conduct."

Outside the drizzle had intensified into a rainstorm that seemed pretty serious about its business, and I hurried from the building to Doctor ter Borcht's car as fast as I could to save myself a soaking. Or most of one, anyway -- I still had to wait for him to unlock the doors before I could get in.

"Hey, Doctor ter Borcht," I said as he started the car.

"Yes?"

"You remember when we had that little argument about altar boys?"

He paused for a moment before answering. "Yes."

"Of course I know altar boys are Catholic." I socked him playfully in the shoulder. "Ya dumb Kraut."

He looked at me in a pained way. "Please don't say that."

"All right," I grumbled. "I must've mistaken you for a guy who can take a joke."

He didn't go back towards my office -- instead, he took a turn and headed for a much swankier part of town.

"Where're you going?" I asked. "I was kidding, okay?"

"I know you were." He paused for a moment, then continued, "And I thought you had requested an interview with me. If not, I'll be happy to take you back to the slum you call an office."

_I could say the same for you, ol' buddy ol' pal_, I thought, adjusting my hat to cut the glare of the bright lights. There were beautiful people walking to and fro on the sidewalks out there, but at the rate we were going and given the tinted windows, I couldn't see a one of them clearly. _Itexicon isn't in the classiest part of town either._

The car slowed to a stop outside a restaurant, and I got out as Doctor ter Borcht dealt with the valet. He came around to meet me once he'd finished and the car had vanished off to... wherever valet-parked cars go.

"It's called _Delmonico's_?" I said, not quite believing my eyes.

"Yes." He kept a perfectly straight face. "The name may be derivative, but the food, I assure you, is not."

I tell you one thing, though: I felt like a county-fair goldfish in a pond of prize koi when I walked into that place. Same basic fish, but a far different pedigree... and worth far less.

"You know, _I _was happy meeting in a cheap diner," I told him once we'd been guided to a table.

"I know you were." He straightened his glasses and smiled at me. "You are the one who's been giving me lessons in paranoia. A cheap diner across the street from Itexicon? Easy to watch." He indicated the restaurant with a sweep of his hand. "A nice restaurant across town from it? Harder to watch."

"Yeah. Harder. But not impossible." Call me a bitter old dog, but that was just a basic truth. Nothing is really impossible. Only implausible.

He smirked. "I assure you, Jeb. No one is watching."

"You sure?" Call me paranoid, but someone always _could_ be watching.

"Absolutely. Any idea what you'd like to order?" He was beating around the bush, and I'd bet the farm he knew he was.

"They don't have burgers and fries here, do they?"

He raised his eyebrows. "I doubt it." It struck me how different this man was from the one I'd met so short a time ago -- how much more collected, almost dashing. "You like steak?"

"Sure, I don't mind it. What kinds have they got?"

"That's usually what the menu is for," he replied.

I was glad to open mine, if only so I wouldn't have to look at him.

I didn't understand a word of what was on there -- except for the steak selection, which seemed closer to plain English. I liked the idea of a steak or something, but I am, admittedly, cheap, and always have been... and then again, this _was_ related to the case. I had an excuse.

The waiter arrived momentarily, dressed far better than I was. "Will you two gentlemen be drinking any wine tonight?"

"Yes," Doctor ter Borcht replied, keeping his eyes on me across the table for a moment before turning to the waiter. "We'll both be having the..." and he named something that sounded French and began with Cabernet.

When I drink something with a name, it's usually Jim Beam.

"Excellent." He vanished, in that not-quite utterly silent way a good waiter has.

I leaned across the table and hissed at the good doctor. "What was _that_?"

He shrugged, untroubled. "You didn't say anything about what kind of drink you'd like. So I ordered for you."

_How sweet of you_. "Thanks," I muttered, and sank back in my seat, wading through the mysteries of a fancy menu.

By the time the waiter reappeared with the wine, I'd decided on what steak I'd order -- filet mignon, because I could pronounce it and it didn't sound that bad.

"And what will you be ordering tonight?"

Predictably, the good doctor reeled off something I didn't pay attention to because I couldn't understand what he was saying -- and he asked for it medium.

Now I'm not exactly a connoisseur, but I do hold some firm opinions about dining. One of them is that meat is absolutely never to be burned -- the closer it is to being alive, the better. (My one concession to eating outside the box: steak tartare. One of the best dishes I've ever had. But we'll get there.)

The good doctor, apparently, was not of the same opinion as I.

The waiter turned to me next. I put on my best smile and ordered the filet mignon, medium-rare.

He nodded and vanished again, leaving me with Doctor ter Borcht again.

I took my notebook from my pocket, along with the pencil I'd borrowed from the good doctor's office, and laid them on the table. "This _is_ still an interview, Doctor."

He grinned. "I know that. Feel free to begin any time you like."

"Once I've thought of some questions, all right?" I rubbed my forehead with the back of one hand. I'd hung my trenchcoat on the coathook, but I still felt a little overheated. By all rights I ought to be cold from the rain.

Maybe the restaurant guys had goofed up their heating system somehow. Yeah. That was it.

"The great private eye caught unprepared? I'm surprised, Mister Batchelder," he said, obviously joking.

"I told you, Doc. Call me Jeb." I sipped my wine -- I've never liked the stuff, but for the sake of an interview I'd put up with it. Even if it wasn't much of an interview.

"If you'll call me Roland, I'll be happy to."

"Fine." It felt strange, calling this guy I hardly knew by his first name. I could deal, though. For the case, if not the interview. I glanced down, avoiding his gaze. "So. First question: where are you from?"

He rested his chin on his hand. "You wouldn't know the town, but it was in southern Germany, near the border with Austria. I studied in quite a few cities you might recognize -- Vienna is lovely, by the way, and you should visit it someday. But the last place I worked before I came over here was Berlin."

I wrote all of that down, more or less word-for-word, and the good doctor watched me with curious eyes.

"You have a shorthand system?" he asked.

"Nope," I said. "I just write fast." I put a period at the end of the sentence and looked back up at him. "Hey, is it hot in here or is it just me?"

"Just you." He sipped from his wine, looking cool as a cucumber. "Next question?"

"Once I think of it, hotshot." He had those intensely blue eyes of his fixed on me, and it gave me the willies. I looked away, took a sip of wine to steady myself. "All right, next question. When did you come over to the United States?"

"Not long ago," he said. "A few years ago, I think it was."

"Any precise dates?"

"After Hitler came to power. That was why I left, remember?"

"So... '33, '34, right?"

He shook his head. "No. More recently. We didn't leave immediately after he came to power -- Doctor Janssen and I gave him a chance, as hard as that is to say now."

"Any more precise dates? Come on -- Roland." It felt strange not calling him Doctor ter Borcht or Doc.

"I know that we were in America well before Kristallnacht, thank God."

"Kristallnacht?"

He leveled his gaze at me, and it was cold. "The night of broken glass. November 9 and 10 last year. I'm sure you remember, Jeb."

"Yeah, I do." I looked down at the table, then forced myself to write that down. "I just, uh... I don't speak... German." Those _eyes._ God in Heaven.

"I understand." He sighed. "Please tell me, before you continue: what is your opinion of the Nazi -- of Hitler's party?"

"The Nazis, yeah." I rubbed my forehead a little, uncomfortable. "I don't approve of them one bit," I said at last. "This Hitler -- he's a nasty piece of work. Someone else ought to be leading Germany."

Doctor ter Borcht closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and sipped his wine. "We agree on that point, then."

"To be honest, Roland," I told him, "it's hard to find a red-blooded American anymore who really likes the Nazis, and that's God's own truth. There're folks who agree with them, but not... well, my mother would've said they're not decent folks."

"That they are not, Jeb." He smiled at me.

"Your food, gentlemen."

_Do waiters really talk like that?_ I thought, and held still as the waiter put our plates down.

Once he'd vanished again, Doctor ter Borcht waved his hand around, as if dispelling the cloud of depressing talk. "Enough with the Nazi talk for now. Tell me something about yourself."

I would've shot a wisecrack back at him, but for some reason I didn't. Instead I shrugged. What could I say? _I've never been to a restaurant this fancy? You're the first person I've been out to dinner with in years?_

"I like your tie," I said.

His smile, as always, was genuine, the left side of his mouth rising slightly higher than the right, and the skin at the corners of his eyes crinkling. "Thank you." He touched it with one hand. "It's the first thing I bought when I came to America. I can't remember why."

"You're welcome," I said. "Goes with your eyes."

His cheeks went red for a moment -- if he'd been some dame I had out to dinner, I'd say he blushed. "Thanks," he muttered.

It really was a beautiful tie, I thought as I cut into my steak. Silk, from my best guess. It would feel smooth and luxurious to the touch, with more give than you'd expect.

Most men, when they wear a tie, look professional, maybe a little tight-laced. It suggests stolidity, trustworthiness. A man in a tie is here to do business.

Well, maybe at some point that morning Doctor ter Borcht had looked like that. But now it was getting into night -- the knot was pulled down slightly, and the top button of his shirt undone so that I could see the hollow at the base of his neck. He looked relaxed, as if he were in his element here.

Me? I probably looked like a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs, to use the old cliché. Instead of looking handsome and at ease like the good doctor... well, I couldn't tell you how I looked, but I know I _felt_ tense. I hadn't shaved in a few days (so I had some stubble going on), hadn't had a haircut in months (so my hair was practically straggling over my collar), and my eyes were probably bloodshot.

Doctor ter Borcht, as I've said, looked handsome and put-together. Sure, his hair was mussed (at odds with the slicked-back hairstyle most of the men I could see around us were sporting). He still looked downright perfect.

I argued with him half-heartedly when the check came -- he'd already picked up the tab for our coffee at noon, and I _hate_ forcing someone else to pay for my food.

"Don't worry about it, Jeb," he said, with a half-smile on his lips. "You had to listen to me talking all this time. This is the best I can do to repay you."

"Fine," I said, irritated, and stood up. "You pay."

Yeah. I let him win there. My mistake.

It was really raining by the time we made it outside, and he produced an umbrella from somewhere, though I refused to let him go so far as to hold it over me while the valet retrieved his car.

"I'll take you home," he said with the cool confidence of a suave man who's had exactly as much alcohol as he can handle. "Just give me directions."

"Well, you already know where it is." I took my hat off, set it on the dash, and ran a hand through my hair.

"You sleep at your _office_?" He sounded shocked.

"Well, yeah. I got a cot, coffeemaker, all the essentials."

"I refuse to take you back to that place to sleep." How cute. The good doctor didn't like my style. Admittedly, I should have invested in an apartment, but it was all I could do to keep rent on the office.

"I'll get out and walk."

"In _this_?" He laughed. "Be my guest, Jeb."

I looked out into the rain. The mild drizzle from earlier, I could've done it. I know my way around this town. But now it was really pouring, and I knew instinctively that while I could _technically_ still walk to my office from the intersection we were stopped at, I'd probably catch a good case of the flu while I was at it.

"Fine. Where are _you_ going to take me, then? A hotel?"

"No. My apartment."

The good doctor never ceased to amaze me.

His building was a fair ways from the downtown area where the restaurant was, and it was a solid quarter of an hour before we got there. When we did, he pulled the car into a nifty little covered parking area, found an open spot, and killed the engine.

I turned to face him in the front seat.

"Thank you," I said, and meant it. "For tonight."

I _meant_ for the interview, but even I am occasionally ill-spoken.

He smiled, and there was a scary, intense sort of light in his eyes for a moment -- I blamed it on the lightbulbs keeping the parking area from being plunged into Stygian darkness.

"No," he said. "Thank _you_."

We looked at each other, for a moment that stretched on a little too long.

_Damn him,_ I thought, fiercely enough that I surprised myself. _God damn him_. Those keen blue eyes -- they were the only clue I needed to know he was a doctor, because his gaze cut into me, laid my soul open like an anatomy plate.

And yet they weren't just sharp -- there was something warm and human there -- something that made me like him on a gut level. My conscious mind had absolutely no input.

"Jeb," he said, almost pleading. What he would have said after that, I'll never know.

Because I wasn't going to put up with him just _looking_ at me anymore.

I put one hand on his tie, one on his shoulder, pulled him closer to me, and I kissed him, full on the lips. (The tie was just as I'd imagined -- cool and slick between my fingers.)

It very well might have ended there -- but then his hands were on me, rough, worrying at the knot of my tie, starting to unbutton my shirt. I didn't give a damn -- I was too caught up in the moment, in his lips on mine, his tongue in my mouth...

_Oh God, what am I doing_? I thought, and opened my eyes.

I pulled away from him, heart pounding. The car had suddenly gotten very quiet -- even the rain seemed far away.

He raised a shaky hand to his lips, then adjusted its course to resettle his glasses on his nose -- he looked about as shocked and exhilarated as I felt.

"That didn't just happen," I whispered.

"No, it didn't," he answered, in a voice completely at odds with his appearance -- tie pulled down, shirt half-buttoned, hair more mussed than usual. (I probably looked about the same, I realized.) He sounded calm, steady, sane -- everything I definitely wasn't.

Not after that.

He wouldn't let me sleep on his couch that night -- according to him I deserved better.

Make of that what you will.


	5. 5

I don't often do this, but I would like to briefly thank everyone who's been reading and reviewing for being generally awesome. You rock my socks and give me a reason to keep writing.

* * *

5

I woke up face-down in an unfamiliar bed, and immediately wished I hadn't. Drinking may be one of my favorite pastimes, but the morning after isn't -- especially when it's not fair. A few glasses of wine is not enough to get me hungover. Although I did seem to recall some whiskey getting involved as well.

I listened for anyone moving around, heard nothing, and got out of bed. I was still in my undershorts and socks from yesterday, and my clothes were piled on a chair beside the bed. My watch was on top of the pile, and I picked it up to check the time -- a few minutes past nine in the morning.

Usually I'm at work by then.

By some definitions, though, I was still at work now, and I set my watch back down before wandering into the kitchen. It was a clean, well-kept little space that smelled like coffee, and there was a note on the table, scribbled on a sheet of notebook paper and addressed to me.

Let me tell you straight off: I'm quite thankful it wasn't any mushy, girly letter mentioning anything untoward. All it was was... well, see for yourself:

_Doctor Roland ter Borcht -- call the Itexicon switchboard_ (and it gave the switchboard number) _and ask for my office._

A drunk monkey could've gotten that far, but I appreciated the note. Showed that he wasn't the aloof type -- he probably knew I could've worked that out for myself if I wanted to contact him.

I shook my head, trying to clear it. It was morning, so... you can't really blame me for not making sense, can you?

There was half a pot of lukewarm coffee left, and I poured myself a cup, then leaned against the table, trying to get my thoughts into shape.

It would be a lie of the most perfect caliber to tell you that I didn't remember the previous night. I hadn't drunk _that_ much -- a few glasses of wine gives me a mild feeling of euphoria and a moderate headache the next morning, and that's it. It takes a real exercise in excess before I start losing my memory.

I've gotten involved with clients before -- it'd be easier to name private eyes who _don't_ at some point wind up in that situation -- so that wasn't the part that threw me for a bit of a loop. The only part of the situation that was really startling was that this time around it was a _man_ I'd fallen for.

Sure, he was an attractive man, but that was beside the point. I set my coffee down on the table -- my hands were shaking so badly I'd probably spill it on myself if I kept holding onto it.

_Hang on a minute, Jeb. What's so wrong with this picture? You were fine with being attracted to dozens of women when you were working for them._

But with the women, I'd been content with a one-night stand. They meant nothing to me the morning after, and I'd be hard-pressed to remember them after I finished whatever case brought them to me.

This man... along the course of my career I've developed a fine sort of sixth sense -- call it the ability to know when my gut feelings are worth trusting.

Right now that sense was telling me that this case -- this man -- was different from the other times I'd had dalliances with clients. The physical attraction was there, and I could deal with that -- well, I could if he proved not to be too disgusted by the thought of another man finding him attractive, or even if he didn't.

What troubled me was that that sixth sense was telling me that not only was I attracted to Doctor ter Borcht, it wasn't only physical. He was a welcome break from the type of vapid, shallow, amoral person I find myself dealing with all too often -- he was intelligent, complex, and devoted enough to his morals that he'd left his country to stay true to them.

I wouldn't have cared so much about the whole affair if I hadn't found myself suddenly unwilling to just let the man go at the end of this case. I wasn't eager to forget him, like I usually was when I made the mistake of sleeping with a client.

I ran a hand through my hair. I'd deal with whatever I felt or didn't feel for Doctor ter Borcht once I wasn't actually, you know... standing around in the place where he _lived_.

I poured myself another cup of coffee and set to finding some breakfast.

After a hastily-executed fried egg, followed by a hot shower to wash away some of my aches and various pains, I was ready to get out of the good doctor's apartment -- so I did, locking the door behind me.

_No_, I didn't have a key... but if you can pick a lock, you can also lock it, and so I did him the favor of _trying_ to keep him from getting robbed.

The sidewalk outside was just starting to dry, wet patches a darker grey than the drier patches. I remembered half-waking sometime early that morning to the sound of rain -- evidently the storm had gone on all night.

I trudged most of the way back to my office alone with my thoughts, thinking miserably that if Marian had bothered to pay me in some fashion before I took the case on, I'd have the money to just flag down a cab and save my feet the trouble. But she'd insisted that Itexicon wouldn't clear her to pay me until I'd finished everything up, so broke I was going to stay.

Although I wouldn't have to worry much if Doctor ter Borcht kept insisting on paying for my food when we met over a meal.

There was something that troubled me about the man, I realized. Most of the people I meet in this city -- as golden as they seem on the surface, there's _something_ rotten under their surface.

The good doctor... the closest he came to being anything other than normal was the dumb-blond act he put on when he was in the lab. Other than that he didn't seem to have a mean bone in his body -- he'd paid for my dinner at the restaurant last night (paid for my coffee yesterday, too), offered me shelter in his own home, and he was one of the most cooperative people I'd ever had the chance to interview.

Then again, there was no telling how he'd react to me now, the morning after I'd slept with him. From the fact that he'd bothered to leave a note -- the fact that he hadn't kicked me out of his apartment -- hell, the fact that he hadn't seemed to mind at all when I _kissed_ him the night before... all that made me want to believe that he wouldn't care, that to him things between us would remain as they always had been.

I could only hope.

I arrived at my office half-frozen (even though it had started to warm up and the sky was blue overhead, it was still damn cold down in the streets) and I could hardly turn the key to unlock the door.

Once I stepped inside, the office was the same as ever -- a small, conservative space, sparely decorated the way I liked it. Technically it had been meant to be the waiting room to an office, but I'd rearranged it when I started renting the space.

I thought of the good doctor last night. "_You sleep at your office?_"

Once I was done with this case, I was going to start renting an apartment, I decided. Not because of how shocked he'd sounded -- well, okay, so that was part of it, but only because it had suggested that he pitied me, and I _hate_ that.

Because sleeping in your office _is_ kind of strange. Not to mention uncomfortable, and as cheap as it might be... I had a feeling, just a feeling, that a company like Itexicon could afford to pay me quite well for this case -- and that they probably would.

I hung up my coat and took off my hat, then sat down to review the notes I'd taken at the impromptu interview I'd conducted with Doctor ter Borcht yesterday. I make a practice of it, in any case where I end up doing an interview (which is more than you'd expect). Keeps my thoughts straight.

He was slightly younger than he looked, he'd told me, and I hoped to have that at least somewhat backed up by the files I'd asked my lovely research librarians to send over. Born in Germany, only son of a middle-class family. He had two younger sisters. Everyone but him still lived in Germany, although his father had died a few years ago. No mention of any friends still living there.

He'd started working at Itexicon almost immediately on arriving in the States -- apparently Doctor Janssen had connections there, and the two of them had swiftly been hired on basis of their backgrounds and good educations.

Doctor ter Borcht had, however, glossed over any unpleasant quality of his job that might cause him to fear or hate it. Which left me with no explanation for why he'd been so radically different that first time we met.

His current employment was on Itexicon's latest big project, which he wouldn't tell me much about, other than that it could be very important to the government -- which came as a surprise. I'd never really thought of Itexicon as a government contractor... although given their size it was more than likely they'd done some work for the government at _some_ point in their long history.

In all the notes I'd taken, I'd evoked a pretty solid picture of Doctor ter Borcht the professional man: comparatively young in a discipline which he told me was usually dominated by men closer to the end of their careers; devoted to his work; hard-working.

What I didn't have in the words I'd written down was a solid picture of Doctor ter Borcht as a person.

Memory, however, served well for that.

He spoke warmly of his family -- so clearly he still felt emotion towards them. They were not estranged.

He was neat, well-groomed, kind, considerate, and, to cut the list short, everything a man is held up to be in society today. Probably even had good taste in music.

There were precious few oddities to his character, and none of them significant, casting him firmly as not of the criminal type. He knew wine fairly well, was more confident and willing to take charge than some other men I've known, and he didn't drink coffee.

None of these gave me any solid indication that he was anything but a fine, upstanding gentleman.

"I always drink tea. Never coffee -- or hardly ever, anyway," he'd said. Apparently he'd been raised, through one circumstance or another, largely by a nurse. He alluded to this having been how he learned to speak English.

I looked up from my notebook. It's easy for me, especially when I'm on a case, to reduce people to flat stereotypes.

The problem with this case was that with Doctor ter Borcht, that tendency just wasn't kicking in.

I was distracted from all that, though.

Someone knocked on my door -- two knocks -- and then opened it.

"Is Jeb Batchelder in here?" he asked -- I couldn't see him too clearly with my glasses off, couldn't even tell you what color his hair was under the cap he was wearing.

I stood up. "That's me."

The person at the door smiled and took another step into my office, bringing them close enough to me that I could make out some features -- dark hair, clear skin, boyish good looks. "I'm Special Agent Frederick Johnson with the Federal Bureau of Investigation."

That didn't sound good. I kept my cool, though -- G-men tend to either turn out on my side or not make any lasting damage to my work. And this one was barely more than a kid anyway.

"What do you need, Agent Johnson?" I asked, and slipped my glasses onto my face. He sprang into focus -- yep, the kid couldn't be more than twenty-five, if that. He hadn't shaved in a few days, though... okay, so neither had I, but that was beside the point.

I wondered what was worrying him, and why he'd been sent to my door. It couldn't be too important, given they'd sent someone so young and (probably) inexperienced.

"You familiar with a Doctor Marian Janssen?" By this point his voice had sold me: this junior G-man was from somewhere in the Midwest. If you wanted to be unkind you could call him a hick.

"I am," I told the kid.

He touched the brim of his hat for a moment, grinned apologetically. "Thought you might be. The Bureau'd like to ask you a few questions."

"What for?"

"She's gone missing, and the government suspects you have something to do with it."

I leaned against the desk. "Run that by me again?"

"If you'll just come with me," he said, "I'll be happy to tell you most anything you want to know."

I looked him over, decided that I trusted him. "All right," I said. "You going to cuff me?"

"FBI agents usually don't," he said, but there was a faint smile on his plain farmboy face as we went down to the street.


	6. 6

6

He drove a plain car, unmarked and painted shiny black. Standard Bureau issue, looked like. I don't know a lot of guys who work for Mister J. Edgar, though, so what do I know?

"Thanks for being so agreeable, Mister Batchelder," he informed me as we drove off to the local office. "It makes things much easier on us, so we can be..."

"Much easier on me, got it," I muttered. I'd grabbed my hat on my way out of the office, and now I tipped it down over my eyes a little, cutting some of the sunlight. I'm not a big fan of bright light -- call me a night owl, but I much prefer a dimly-lit alley to a sun-drenched boulevard.

"Right." He laughed politely, and I got the feeling that while the kid might not like me, he didn't exactly feel prejudiced towards me either. Good. Get on the wrong side of the Bureau and you'll never get right again -- I've done my best to stay on their right side for as long as I've been able, and it's done me nothing but good.

The local office was located in an unassuming little building -- if you'd asked me on sight to guess what business occupied that white-washed building, I'd have guessed maybe a doctor's office, or a bank. It had that dignified kind of look about it.

Inside, it was like every other local office of the Bureau. Busy. Full of men in dark suits with serious expressions on their clean-shaven faces -- ever seen a G-man wear a moustache? Neither have I.

They're not friendly places, and from the minute I stepped in the door, I knew that my first goal was going to be to get back out just as quickly as I could. The best way to do that was to be quiet and cooperative.

"Coffee?" Agent Johnson asked. This was after I'd been shuffled into a small room with concrete walls, so I felt jumpy enough anyway. I appreciated the offer, though.

"Sure," I said despite myself.

He nodded. "Pot's on the table there. No sugar, no cream. You look like a black coffee man to me, though."

And the cups were stacked next to the pot. "That I am," I said. "Thanks, kid."

"Someone will be in to talk to you in a minute," he said, slipping back into federal-agent mode, and stepped out, leaving me alone with the coffee.

I sighed and poured myself a cup -- I was fine without cream or sugar. Coffee's fine by itself. Although judging from the scatter of sugar I'd seen on his counter that morning, Doctor ter Borcht took his coffee, when he drank it, with sugar (and he'd been in a hurry, given that he hadn't stopped to clean up the mess).

I wrapped my hands around the cup, feeling the heat from the coffee burning through the paper cup. I'd had worse coffee before, but this sure didn't promise to be at the top of my list.

It was caffeine, though, and I had to give it that. Nothing like a chemical compound to brighten your morning.

What kind of doctor _was_ Doctor ter Borcht, anyway? Somehow I'd forgotten to ask. He had a doctorate, of that much I was sure. But was he a medical doctor, or was his degree in something else, like... chemistry, maybe?

And why did my every train of thought this morning lead back to him?

Luckily for me, before I could get on finding an answer, the door opened, and yet another G-man stepped in. He had dark hair, slicked with Brylcreem (judging from the smell), and a deliberately blank expression that I didn't much care for.

"Mister Batchelder?" he said, hand still on the doorknob, as if he doubted he was in the right room, or that I was the right person.

I nodded. "That's me," I said, and stood up to shake his hand. He had a strong, dry grip -- not quite one of those bonecrusher handshakes you get sometimes, but close.

"I'm Special Agent Frank Henderson," he said once he'd let go of my hand, and he came around the table to sit down across from me.

Anticipating that, I moved all the coffee paraphernalia off to one side before sitting back down myself. It's hard to make eye contact through a coffeepot.

He leaned on the table, smiling. "Mister Batchelder, Agent Johnson already told you why we brought you down here today --"

"He didn't explain very _well_, Agent Henderson," I said. "No offense meant."

"None taken." He tapped his moustache with one finger before continuing. "A research scientist at Itexicon was abducted from her office last night around five-thirty."

Doctor Janssen? Had to be. But she never worked that late... at least, not according to Doctor ter Borcht she didn't. That, and five-thirty was just before when the stiff in the good doctor's office had been offed. Maybe those two events were connected somehow...

Agent Henderson had kept talking. "...connection to Doctor Janssen," he finished.

My gaze had fallen to the table while I thought, and I looked up, blinking. "I'm sorry, Agent Henderson, but can you repeat that?"

He looked at me -- not coldly, but... without emotion. "One of Doctor Janssen's acquaintances said you'd been in contact with her recently. That's why we brought you in."

"Sorry," I muttered, dropping my gaze back to the table, and took a quick sip of my coffee.

"So if you don't mind," he said smoothly, "I'll just ask you some questions now." When I looked up he'd silently opened a notebook on the table, and laid a pencil next to it, preparing to write.

"Go right ahead."

"When was the last time you saw Doctor Janssen?" he asked, and though I was staring into my coffee, I heard the faint scratching of his pencil on the paper. Were we being recorded? I wondered. Was someone listening in?

No, probably not -- it was easier to just have Agent Henderson write as he talked to me. I wasn't a suspect in that valuable of a case -- well, not yet, anyway.

"Yesterday," I said. "Around ten in the morning."

Writing. "Did you visit the Itexicon building at any time after that?" I had a sinking feeling I knew where he was going with this line of questioning.

"Yes. Twice." I waited a moment for him to finish writing down the question, then went on. He'd catch up with me. "Once, briefly, around noon, but I didn't go inside. Then again a little after six, and I actually went in the building then."

"Was someone else with you at either time?" Read: tell me someone's name who can prove to me that you were there when you say you were.

"Yes. The same person both times." I didn't know why I was evading his questions -- didn't even notice I was until the words had left my lips.

"Who was that person?" I heard him writing frantically, but when I glanced at the page (raising my gaze from the black mirror surface of the coffee I'd left untouched) it was filling up with neat handwriting.

"Doctor Roland ter Borcht," I said, reeling off his name with ease. "He's also a research scientist with Itexicon," I added.

Agent Henderson smiled. "We know that, Mister Batchelder. We interviewed him earlier today."

Which didn't surprise me -- it only made sense, really. He must've been the one who told them I knew Doctor Janssen -- even though I hardly knew her at all.

"So I'm guessing he's the one who told you I knew Doctor Janssen?"

He paused, and for a brief moment, looking up from my coffee, I saw surprise on his face. "Doctor ter Borcht gave us some solid evidence that --"

"Let me give you the story," I told him. "Doctor Janssen asked me for my help finding some papers that got stolen from her team's offices at Itexicon."

"And she offered to pay you?"

_Nah, I said I'd do it out of the goodness of my heart._ "I'm a private eye, Agent Henderson. That's why Doctor Janssen came to me on behalf of Itexicon."

"Why not go to the police?"

A lot of people don't, not until it's clear they need to. "Doctor Janssen didn't tell me. I don't usually ask."

Agent Henderson put down his pencil. "I believe you've said enough, Mister Batchelder. You can go now."

That _couldn't_ be it. That couldn't be all the Bureau wanted of me. I refused to believe it.

Agent Henderson coughed politely and looked at me across his notebook. "Doctor ter Borcht... During his interview he requested that I ask you to see him at his office. Immediately. Said it was about the stolen papers."

And he couldn't have just called me at my office because? "Thanks." I got up, resettled my hat on my head. "Should I be expecting you fellows around again anytime soon?"

He shook his head. "If we need to talk to you, we'll call."

"Good."

"Thanks for your trouble, Mister Batchelder. We appreciate your cooperation."

Like hell he did.

"Always glad to help the Bureau," I told him, and left.

I knew my way out, which helped me from getting lost in the place -- so I wasn't long before I'd found my way back out to the street again, and knew where I was in the city. The local office was fairly close to Itexicon, though still in a decent area of town. Not a hard walk, especially given that the day had warmed up during my time inside.

The receptionist hardly glanced once at me when I walked in the doors, let alone twice. Maybe she thought she could trust me, maybe she didn't even notice me walking in. I couldn't tell you.

The boy in the elevator recognized me, all right, and he smiled a little under his cap, then guessed which floor I was going to.

He was right.

I got out of the elevator with a light step, certain I knew what I wanted to say to Doctor ter Borcht. If he mentioned the previous night, I'd apologize and then come what may.

If he didn't, business as usual between me and a client.

I lifted my hand to knock on Doctor ter Borcht's door, then hesitated. Doctor Janssen's office was just a few doors down the hall from his -- and she was, after all, the person who had hired me.

So I went to her door instead.

Just as it had been the other day, her office was, though not painstakingly neat, in an accustomed sort of chaos. (How had she _known_ when her office was in a mess after her notes were stolen?) No one had been through it looking for something, judging from the settled look of the disorder. No sign of any sort of struggle.

I had a quick look around, found nothing, then headed for the good doctor's office, where I knocked twice.

He yanked the door open. "Jeb. Good. Hello," he said, as if suddenly remembering that people usually like to be greeted at the door. "Sorry for causing you all the bother," he said with an absent apologeticness. He was clutching a slip of folded paper in his hand.

"I don't mind," I said, shutting the door behind me. I happen to_ like_ the Bureau. They help me, I help them. "So what did you need? Agent Henderson said you wanted to talk to me."

"I do." He pressed the paper into my hand -- startled, I jerked away slightly before unfolding the paper to look at it.

The paper itself was pretty average -- white, with neat black handwriting covering one side. Looked like a woman's handwriting, but I couldn't really be sure... given that it was, you know, in _German._ Which, if you remember, I don't speak.

I looked up from the page. Doctor ter Borcht was looking blankly off into the distance.

"Can you translate this?" I asked, and put the paper back in his hand. He blinked, and then adjusted his glasses, peering down at the paper.

"Yes," he said, and began to read -- like any translation, it was more halting than natural speech, but for an awkward, spur-of-the-moment translation, it was fairly fluent.

As such, imagine the following with far more pauses.

" 'Herr Doktor Professor. I am happy to hear you are working on a new project, and wish you all the best. I've still got your notes, but hopefully you've overcome this inconvenience and are still working. I have high hopes for your success.' " He cleared his throat before continuing.

" 'Your old friend Josef sends his greetings, and hopes you'll be able to join him back in Germany soon. His superiors in the government here request you return as soon as possible so that they can make use of your expertise to solve a problem they have recently encountered.' " He winced, touched the bow of his glasses with the fingers of one hand, and continued reading where he'd left off. " 'I apologize for going to such extremes to get your attention, but... Herr Doktor Professor, your country needs you. Return to Germany with all haste or I'll be forced to take more drastic actions. Your faithful servant...' " His voice faltered. " 'Maximum'," he said softly, and set the slip of paper on the desk.

Odd name. I wondered what kind of a man it took to choose a name for himself like _Maximum_. Probably a _nom de guerre,_ like Lenin or Stalin.

I didn't know what to say.

The good doctor sighed and pushed his glasses up on his nose. "I wouldn't trust this letter," he said (and you know, I don't usually trust anonymous letters, either). "But..."

"Who are those people it mentions?" I asked. "Josef and that Maximum guy." Maybe they'd have some idea what was going on here.

"Josef was..." His voice shook. "He was one of my friends in Germany. I met him at a café. He'd be a doctor by now." He grabbed for the desk, suddenly unstable, and his hand brushed mine.

"So who's Maximum?"

I saw his hand shake for a moment, and he hesitated before speaking.

"I don't know how much I can tell you about her," he answered.

_Her? Well, okay then._

I grinned at him. "I need to know. Tell me everything. Itexicon doesn't have to know."

"I can't tell you everything," he said, and the hand that had been resting loosely on the desk clenched into a fist. "I don't _know_ everything."

I ran a hand through my hair. "Take a seat, then," I told him, "and tell me what you _do_ know."


	7. 7

7

"When I still lived in Germany, I worked for a private research laboratory, funded by Frankfurt University. 'Maximum' was our code name for one of our experiments -- a word that's almost the same in German as in English. For her, it became a name.

"Yes. The experiment was on a human woman -- more of a girl, then. I've forgotten her real name, if I ever knew it.

"I'm not sure exactly what was done to her. I wasn't responsible for most of it, and what I was involved with I hardly remember. I know that she was dosed with high amounts of chemicals -- but I couldn't tell you what they were.

"This I remember: we called her Maximum because she was the best we could achieve at the time -- we didn't doubt that someday someone could... do better. But we knew our limitations.

"Money," he said dryly, "was not easy to come by."

_Damn right it hadn't been._ If my inferred dates were correct, he'd been working while Germany was still in the worst stage of its economic bad juju -- before Hitler came to power.

They probably weren't correct, but what the hell. Had to be close enough -- I'm fairly good with dates.

He cleared his throat, went on droning -- as witty as the man was capable of being, I've rarely heard his match in lecturing in full-on boring-professor mode.

Maybe it was some kind of survival skill for him -- academia can be a pretty cut-throat business, I've heard, and when you do the kind of work the good doctor did, maybe being incomprehensible and boring can save you.

If no one knows (or cares) what you're saying, they can't use it as a justification for killing you.

"Our experimentation was outlawed," he continued, and under the professorial monotone, his voice was on the edge of shaking. "Without it, I had no reason to stay in Germany. Itexicon had offered me a position if I'd ever come to the United States. Also Marian. So... we left."

He'd had other motivations. I was sure of it.

Now, how to ask him what they were... I wasn't sure. I'd get there someday, though.

He stared at his hands -- before he'd started talking, the good doctor (as you may remember) had sat down in his desk chair. Now he looked up at me. "That's... all."

"Okay," I said. "I get it. Gimme just a minute to finish writing all that down."

He nodded. "All right."

I scribbled in my notebook, trying to get down the story. I didn't believe it -- I really didn't. (Experimenting on a human with chemicals? It didn't sound kosher to me. There _had_ to be laws against that -- well, in the good ol' U. S. of A., at least. Maybe not in Germany.)

I shut the notebook, shoved it in my pocket. I had a feeling that was all the notes I'd be taking for now.

Let me pause for a moment and tell you something mildly prophetic: all the time when he was telling that story, I had a feeling. Like he was neglecting to tell me something, holding back some information. Maybe it was where his lab had gotten funding in debt-ridden Germany. Maybe it was why he'd _really_ left Germany in the first place.

Maybe I was just anxious because of his tie -- what it reminded me of, now. (I rubbed my wrists, barely aware I was doing it. No bruises, just a little residual soreness.)

He touched the bow of his glasses with the fingers of one hand (_You're nervous, Doc. Why?_), sighed, and grabbed my hand, pressing something small and cardboard into it. He didn't let go, just looked up, meeting my eyes.

"This was under my desk," the good doctor said, and let go of my hand. Why he'd held onto me, why he couldn't just hand the damn thing to me, whatever it was, I didn't know.

Maybe he just liked holding my hand. Certainly I didn't _mind_ it.

_-- who thought that_? It definitely hadn't been me.

It was a matchbook, the design on it worn and faded. A few of the matches were gone, used for some purpose even I couldn't divine right away, but from the way the rest looked worn and a little twisted... this matchbook had spent a lot of time just being carried around in someone's pocket. It had been, for some curious reason, a keepsake to someone.

"It isn't yours?"

He shook his head. "I think it belonged to the... That man."

"The stiff." I turned the matchbook over in my hand, looking at it.

He nodded stiffly, smiled. "Yes. The stiff."

It was, in the end, a matchbook, nothing much more and nothing less. From the lettering I made out, it was from somewhere in Germany -- Berlin, I guessed.

I regretted, for... I don't know how many times I'd regretted not learning German since I'd gotten this case. Probably a lot. The number got higher.

There was faint printed writing on the back of the cover, someone's scribble. I held it out to Doctor ter Borcht. "You can read this?"

"Yes." He leaned over my hand rather than take it from me, then leaned back, having read it.

"So what does it say?"

He inhaled deeply, as if he needed to be reassured that air still existed before he could speak. "It is... an invitation. 'Meet me here, on Friday, in the evening'. You know."

"I've never invited someone to go someplace via matchbook."

He grinned. "I have."

"Is this your handwriting?" I had to ask. I didn't know his handwriting yet. Well. _Yet._

And besides -- pencil fades and smudges. Even if I had known then what the good doctor's handwriting looked like, I might not have been able to identify it.

He hesitated. "Don't you want to know what it says?"

That clinched it -- it was his. Or at least my instincts told me so -- and when have you ever known my instincts to be wrong?

Never. Right.

"You just told me." I took the matchbook away from him by moving my hand. "Is it your handwriting or not?"

He stood up, pushing the chair away behind him.

"Is it?"

"Yes," he said, and kissed me.

I'd been wondering if he regretted having slept with me -- this gave me a resounding answer of _No_, _absolutely not._

I pulled away from him almost before his lips had touched mine, and he looked at me cuttingly, as if to ask why I'd do such a thing.

"C'mon, Doc," I said to him. "You wrote in that matchbook. For who? Tell me the whole story here."

"I don't remember his name," he said, and something in his tone made me think he might be lying -- I didn't know why, though. "This was -- a long time ago. I asked him to meet me at a bar I knew -- the one where I'd gotten the matchbook."

"All right," I said. "This guy you met -- that was the stiff?" It would explain why he'd seem to have had the matchbook on him.

He shook his head. "No. Whoever the -- stiff was, I assure you I'd never seen him before."

"You're sure?" The good doctor was still standing awkwardly close to me, as if he wanted something from me.

"Pretty damn," he said, and grinned.

I stepped away from him -- that grin of his was _scary_, and he was standing _way_ too close to me -- and ran a hand through my hair. "So are you going to Germany or what?"

"It's not worth it," he said. "And I don't know if -- if Maximum even wrote that letter."

"What if she did? Would you go then?"

He looked at me as if I'd asked him "if you had a gangrenous arm, would you cut it off?" or some other question which had an answer starting in yes and ending in of course.

He held his breath for a moment, and it didn't matter -- I already knew what he was going to say.

You know what sound history makes? An exasperated, quiet, almost longing sigh, like the one he gave just then.

Would that I had known.

"Yes," said the doctor. "I'd go back."

Blame my curious nature, but I had to spoil the moment and ask him.

"Why is that?"

He looked at me, an expression of sad surprise on his face. "Maximum was -- is -- a dangerous psychotic. I'm not sure if she always was that way, or if those tendencies were... strengthened by the chemical treatments."

His tone was one I am all too familiar with -- the tone a man takes when he's trying to convince you that he's a decent guy who just happens to have ended up in a bad situation. Normally it's a sure sign of an incoming cock-and-bull story.

But for some reason...

Well, that tone of voice had to have been invented for a reason, know what I'm saying? _Someone_ had to have been a good guy with bad luck, or we wouldn't have the tone of voice to declare it.

Maybe the good doctor -- maybe _Roland_ -- was one of those guys.

I had to hope.

He laughed, and for a delusional moment before he spoke I thought maybe he knew what I was thinking.

"She said 'more drastic actions'," he said, and shook his head ruefully. "You are a private eye, Jeb. You know what she means." He broke off -- to him I was no longer the other half of a conversation. I was an audience member.

"From what she seemed to be implying," he mused, "other than that, well... I'm flattered that the government wants me back so much."

"The government wants you back?" Huh. Impressive, if it was true. What could he mean to them?

"She said that much in the letter." He touched his glasses again (_Am I what's making you nervous, Doc? What I want from you is the truth_) and his hand shook. "I don't know if I should believe her, though."

I shrugged. "Got me, Doc. I'm a private eye, not a psychic. Check your mail, maybe?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Pray tell me, Jeb, what checking my mail would have to do with anything, least of all the German government."

"It could have to do with everything." I looked him straight in the eye. The good doctor was just about my height. I'd never noticed that before. "If they wanted you back they'd ask for you back, right?"

"Right. You'd think that." He relaxed a little, smiled. "That's where you'd be wrong, though. I don't _know_ what they'd do if they wanted me back."

"Speaking as the only sane man in the room," I said, cutting him off, "they'll send you a letter or something if they want you to come back."

"Fine," he said. "That's all I wanted to say." He grinned again -- the nature of his smile changed depending on what had provoked it, but his grin was always something that could have scared Old Scratch himself.

"If you get any more information for me," I began -- and then _he_ cut _me_ off.

"Don't call me. I'll call you," he said, and you know? I wasn't a hundred percent sure if I wanted to deck him or kiss him.


	8. 8

8

As it would turn out, the phone call came three days later, on Monday. The connection was bad for some reason, and static clouded his voice.

"...there...?" he said when I first picked up.

"Speak up," I said. "Can't hear you."

"Jeb! ... here right away ... speak with you."

Ever tried to carry on a conversation over a bad phone connection? (If you haven't, you're lying.) It's frustrating, to say the least.

"Your office?" I said, putting my hat on one-handed. "I can be right there." Well, more or less.

"... car ... immediately!"

"Say that again?"

A staticky sigh down the phone line. "... _sending_ a _car_ ... don't go anywhere ... I'll be right there."

Great. "See you," I said, and he hung up on me.

By my watch, it had been just over ten minutes when I heard footsteps on the stairs. Whoever had been driving must have gone like hell.

I rose from my chair, ready to greet Doctor ter Borcht at the door before he dragged me off on whatever wild goose chase he had for me.

The shadow outside didn't look like him, though -- the profile didn't match up.

I opened the door.

I'd seen Nazis before, in newsreels and on the front pages of newspapers. But like almost everyone in the country, I'd never seen one in person.

There's a first time for everything, I guess.

"You are Mister Batchelder?" said the man in the familiar uniform. He had cold blue eyes, and his pale blond hair was cropped close to his skull under the uniform hat. He had a strong accent, stronger than either Doctor Janssen's or Doctor ter Borcht's.

I felt like I'd walked into a newsreel. And where was the cameraman? Someone ought to be taking film.

"Yes," I said. "That's me."

He smiled, a perfunctory motion of the lips. "Come with me."

"Who are you?" I asked.

"My name is Fritz Kempf," he said smoothly as we went down the stairs. "I've come to America to, eh... retrieve Doctor ter Borcht."

"What have I got to do with that?" Not that I didn't somewhat trust him, given that the good doctor had said he was sending someone over with a car, but... I may have my stupid moments, but I'm not _that_ naïve.

I was not terribly surprised when the car parked at the curb turned out to be a slightly classed-up edition of the model Doctor ter Borcht owned. It was, after all, a fairly common model -- the kind you might loan to a guy visiting on government business from Germany, maybe.

He turned to me as we stood on the sidewalk, and struggled for the words to explain.

"The German government," he said finally, "has heard something of your, eh... good results so far in the case Doctor Janssen brought to you."

"I'm flattered," I told him. Good results? Hardly. It was only getting worse.

He shrugged. "So _they_ asked _me_ to ask _you_ if you'd be willing to come work for them."

"What for?"

He looked mildly confused, and I amended my question. "I mean, what do they want me to do for them?"

"Oh. They, eh..." He looked around, and I wanted to say to him: _we're in the middle of a poor part of town in an American city, Fritz Kempf. No one here would care if you told me out loud that your Herr Hitler likes to dance the __Charleston__ in a ball gown. Tell me what I want to know._ "Perhaps we should continue this conversation in the car?"

"Fine by me," I told him, and he went around to the driver's side and got in. Seemed like a nice enough kid, but who knew?

Once I'd gotten in on the passenger's side of the car (and closed the door after me), Kempf seemed to cool his jets a little.

"This a state secret?" I asked without meaning to -- sometimes my mouth runs a little ahead of the grey stuff between my ears. You'll have to excuse that tendency, but I'm guessing you already noticed it.

"What?"

"Why're we in the car?" I didn't see any reason to not stay out on the sidewalk... as I've already said, I believe.

"I get nervous talking in front of too many people," he said, waving a hand negligently. "My English isn't very good..."

"Sounds fine to me." I don't listen to a lot of non-native speakers, but his English really wasn't that bad. What kind of language schools did they _have_ in Germany?

"Thank you," he said. "The government wants you to investigate where Doctor Marian Janssen is."

"That's... actually what I've been trying to do," I said.

He seemed to cheer up a little. "Excellent! So you're well prepared to help us."

"I'm guessing Doctor Janssen is in the country, then." If she weren't, where the hell _was_ she?

"In Germany? Yes, we're fairly sure she is."

Fairly sure? This coming from a representative of the _government_... oh yeah, that made me feel _real_ secure about the situation. "Okay... well, I'm flattered that the government is calling me in. Not to be crass, but, uh..."

"Yes, Mister Batchelder. You will be paid. Doctor Janssen's safety is very important to Germany, I am led to believe." It would've sounded sinister, if I hadn't had better things to worry about.

I shrugged. "Well, okay then. As long as I'm getting paid... Mister Kempf, I'll be happy to take the job."

He laughed, the first real display of human emotion I'd seen from the kid. "Excellent! Shall we go to Doctor ter Borcht's office now?"

"Sure, why not," I said. If someone was in control here, it was him, after all. "But what's he got to do with this, if it's me the government wants?"

Kempf had an answer ready, the smooth son-of-a-gun.

"Doctor ter Borcht," he informed me, "has been requested to return to Germany by the government so that he can lend his, eh, assistance in some science-related area, yes? Itexicon agreed to have him moved to their facility in Berlin and here we are."

Pardon my language, but it just has to be said: that story had to be the biggest load of _horseshit_ I'd heard in a long time.

I couldn't blame the kid, though -- he probably wasn't the one who'd come up with it.

Kempf seemed to believe it, so I nodded my agreement. "All right. Let's go, then."

"Excellent," he said, and turned the keys in the ignition.

The engine caught almost immediately.

We were at Itexicon inside ten minutes, and I was surprised -- the young German drove fast, but entirely within the law. Nice skill to have, if you ask me. Beats being able to whistle by a long shot.

Doctor ter Borcht was waiting in the lobby, hat in hand, and he smiled when he saw the two of us push our way through the doors. The smile was probably attributable to the fact that the kid was far more neatly dressed than me -- he was in uniform, and I looked like hell. Hilarious, I'm sure. Or at least it amused the good doctor.

"Hello, Jeb," he said quietly, and settled his hat on his head. "And hello, Sturmbannführer Kempf. You've sorted everything out between yourselves?" Compared to Kempf's rough, accented English, the good doctor's speech seemed practically native.

Kempf nodded. "I believe we have, Doctor. You are ready to leave?"

"Yes." Doctor ter Borcht picked up the briefcase that had been sitting on the floor by his shoes. "I've notified the other members of my team that I'll be absent. I assure you, everything is quite taken care of, Sturmbannführer. Whenever you're ready to leave."

I don't know why the good doctor bothered saying all that in English, rather than the German both he and Kempf spoke natively -- possibly for my benefit, but I wasn't sure.

"Do I get to pack for this little excursion?" I asked.

Kempf turned to me, features set in a blandly curious expression. "Excuse me?"

"This sounds like a pretty extended trip," I said, expanding my original statement. "Do I get to pack some clothes? Maybe a toothbrush?"

Kempf blinked (and Doctor ter Borcht looked on with faint amusement). "Certainly."

"Then I'll need a chance to do that before we leave," I said. Had he _forgotten_?

"Some time can be spared for that," said Kempf. "It is important that we get back to Germany as quickly as possible. You can pack, yes, but you'd better pack fast."

He looked from me to the good doctor, then back at me.

"Just take me by my office," I muttered. "My apartment's in the same building." Which was absolutely true.

Kempf nodded, then turned to Doctor ter Borcht, to whom he addressed himself in curt, rapid-fire German. I guessed he was asking the good doctor whether he'd also like to pack a suitcase.

Doctor ter Borcht, coincidentally, answered him with some of the few German words I knew (and those mainly picked up from my dealings with the immigrants in the German part of town, where it helped greatly to know even a few words). "Ja, bitte."

For those of you in the cheap seats, or those as clueless as I am -- that means "yes, thank you". (And yes, to the best of my ability I'll be translating for you for the remainder of this story. Wouldn't do you any good if you didn't know what was going on, would it?)

Kempf grinned. "Jawohl!" he said jokingly, and turned back to me. "I apologize," he said, as smoothly as ever. "I, eh... forgot."

"It's all right," I told him. God help me, I kind of liked the kid. Seemed nice enough, and his English was pretty good. "We're all human."

One thing I never did find out -- how Kempf learned to drive like that. He stopped the car outside the bar downstairs from my office, and I hopped out -- he said he'd be back with the good doctor in half an hour or so.

I packed fast -- everything I'd need not knowing how long I'd be gone. Clothes. Extra notebook -- I doubted I'd fill up my new one, which I was only a few pages into anyway.

Don't wait for me to tell you I packed a gun under my socks. I didn't.

True to his word, Kempf returned (with the good doctor in tow) after half an hour. I heard quick footsteps on the stairs, and then a knock on the door. "Mister Batchelder?" Kempf himself. Must've left the good doctor with the car.

I hurried from my apartment out through the office, making sure to grab my suitcase as I went. In a dim way I was sure I'd forgotten something -- hadn't there been something else I needed? But I had my toothbrush, razor, all the things people leave behind when they go somewhere in a hurry.

"Kempf," I said, just as he opened the door to look into the office. "You're ready to go?"

"That's why I came for you," he said, and stepped all the way inside -- it's hard to stay looking around the edge of a door for long. "Everything taken care of, yes? Let's go. Time's wasting."

I shut the door behind me, and I felt a weird sensation go dancing up my spine. When was I going to open that door again? Would I ever?

"Wait," I told Kempf.

I locked the door.


	9. 9

9

I won't name the airport we flew out of, but I will tell you that it's probably closed by now. I don't keep track of that sort of thing, besides which it had the air of a more... they call it "select" type of joint.

Kempf parked the car, as neatly as he'd driven it, hopped out, and ran off to a little building with grey walls. I'd wound up in the back seat, and so if he'd said anything by way of explanation to the good doctor, I hadn't heard it.

I stood outside the car with my suitcase, looking around, adjusting my hat. Fidgeting. The wind was blowing in my face, so I walked around to the other side, where Doctor ter Borcht was standing around being awkward, briefcase in hand and suitcase sitting next to him.

At least he was out of the wind.

I sidled up next to him, one hand firmly on the crown of my hat, the other gripping my suitcase. "Did Kempf tell you where he was going?"

"Had to make a phone call," he muttered, and to me, from how quiet his voice was and the way his hands shook a little, it sounded like he was either cold or nervous.

Well, I would be too -- from what I knew of how his morning had gone, he'd probably gotten to the office, been surprised by a young blond fellow in a Nazi uniform, called me up, and spent the rest of his time trying to arrange things for a surprise trip out of the country.

"Ah," I said. "Did he say who he was calling?"

Doctor ter Borcht shook his head. "Probably checking in with whoever his boss is, back in Germany." He put his briefcase down.

We were going to be here for a while, then. Transatlantic phone calls tend to take a while. What was the time difference between here and Germany? I couldn't remember. And then he'd probably have to go through operators and all that jazz...

I pitied the poor telephone girl who had to deal with Kempf.

I set my suitcase down next to the car, took off my hat and held it in one hand while I ran the other through my hair.

"You got a comb?" I asked the good doctor.

"Afraid not," he said, and turned for a moment to watch the door of the squat little building Kempf had gone into. It wasn't much more than a shack, but its paint was, if not fresh exactly, well-maintained.

I resettled my hat on my head. No one was going to be having a good hard look at me for a while yet, anyway.

"Say, do you know how long the flight will be?" I said.

Doctor ter Borcht turned from watching the door and regarded me with a mild gaze. "We'll get there at some obscene time of night, or at least it will feel that way." He shrugged. "Or at least that was my experience when I came over to America. No matter when you arrive, you'll arrive tired."

_In your case, Doc, that might've been because you weren't just leaving the country -- you were running from the Nazis._

"All right. Thanks." I was going to have to adjust my watch once we landed in Germany -- I'd have to remember that. "Did Kempf tell you what airline we're flying?"

The good doctor cracked a smile -- okay, now I just knew something had him nervous. Normally (or at least in the week or so I'd known him) he was a pretty sunny kind of guy, always looking on the bright side of his situation, no matter what situation he was in.

But right now he seemed edgy and stressed. Strange. "Lufthansa, I imagine. That or Itexicon will be sending a private plane for us, I'm not sure which. He didn't say."

Call me a hick, but the concept of a private plane still kind of stunned me. Wow. I might be a private detective, might be a little bit used to dealing with people of all social stripes, but... the young farmboy in me was still massively impressed by a man or a company rich enough to own planes of its own. (Well, not if that company was an airline. I'd never been _that_ much of a hick.)

Though considering the sheer size of Itexicon -- it was an international corporation, after all -- I shouldn't have been surprised. "I've heard of Lufthansa before. Didn't know it was the German airline, though."

"Well, it is." He adjusted his hat with one hand, briefly touched the bow of his glasses with the other -- all signals pointed to nervous.

I bit my tongue before I spoke -- it was still ingrained in me to call him Doctor ter Borcht, but I knew he liked it better when I called him by his Christian name. "Roland?"

He seemed calm enough going by his voice, though I could see by his body language that he was anything but calm. "Yes, Jeb?"

"What's got you all nervous? You look like a man waiting to hear the jury's verdict."

He sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose below where his glasses sat. "I haven't been back to Germany in years. I'm not very enthusiastic about it, to tell the truth."

"What for? Sounds like they just want you back for a while," I said. "And it sounds like a cushy job."

I might be a private eye, and even then I was a bitter son-of-a-gun, but it amazes me how naïve I could still be. We've all got our flaws, though, I guess. I might be a world-weary, cynical man on the inside when it came to people, but when it came to politics...

He laughed, patted me on the shoulder, and leaned over to speak in my ear, his voice pitched low in case Kempf should come back. "Jeb, they may not let me leave this time. I loved my country, once, but I'm afraid to see how it's changed."

"If you loved it, why'd you leave it?" I asked. He was just a little too close for comfort -- I could practically feel his skin against mine.

"Hitler," he answered, as curtly as it was possible to answer. "I couldn't agree with his politics."

His breath was hot against my ear, and I restrained myself from stepping away from him. "Didn't I already tell you this?"

"Yeah," I said, stammering for a moment, distracted by how close he was. I don't like it when people stand too close to me -- call me a typical American, but that's how I am. "I guess I forgot."

"Good thing you wrote it down. It seems you have an unreliable memory, Jeb." _Anyone would, with you breathing down his neck_.

"That's why I have a notebook -- it's more accurate than memory," I said, wishing he'd just step away from me.

He smelled like Ivory soap and some aftershave I couldn't quite identify.

And goddammit, why was I noticing that? We were standing in a damn parking lot -- this was absolutely _not_ the time for... for shenanigans.

"Hmm. That's a good reason," he mused. He was holding his hat in one hand -- when had he taken it off? Usually I was more observant than that.

"Look, if you're going to stand that close, just kiss me and get it over with," I said, and almost clapped my hand over my mouth like a dame in the movies, as if I could force the words back inside. That never works, though, and I ought to know it.

"I'd be glad to," he said, and he did kiss me. Right there in the parking lot.

I'd been fairly sure the man was a little crazy before (we all are, somewhere deep inside), but this just clinched it.

I stood there like an idiot for a few seconds before deciding to hell with it -- it was an unusually grey and windy day, and no one (well, except the good doctor and I) was around to see.

Besides, it's hard for me to concentrate while someone's kissing me (as it no doubt is for you) -- well, unless I'm concentrating on giving as good as I'm getting. Which I did my best to do.

He pulled away from me after a moment and whispered in my ear. Something involving "you smell good".

"You have _got_ to be kidding me," I told him. Who actually _says_ that?

"No, really." His voice was soft, slightly slurred. He hadn't been drinking, not this early in the day -- the good doctor didn't seem like the kind of person to indulge at work, either -- so it couldn't be alcohol.

_Maybe,_ suggested a heretical portion of my psyche, _he likes being around you._

Marx had said that religion was the opiate of the masses, and I've heard it said that anyone worth knowing has at least one vice, one thing they retreat to when the situation gets nasty.

It was possible -- just -- that Doctor ter Borcht was using me as that one thing, as a substitute for whatever he normally turned to. Maybe he did like to drink, I wouldn't really know.

Well, if nothing else he wasn't as uptight anymore -- you can't really say a man is uptight or anxious when his breathing in your ear sounds like anything but; slow, deliberate breathing suggests nervousness less than it suggests relaxation, I find.

I laughed. "Get _off_ me," I told him. "Kempf could come back any minute." If he saw Doctor ter Borcht murmuring sweet nothings into my ear... well, we'd be up the proverbial creek, minus the proverbial paddle.

"I'm not _on_ you," he pointed out rather reasonably, but he still moved away from me enough that I felt less awkward about it. "And you still smell nice."

"You get my point." I straightened my hat, adjusted my glasses, fiddled with my tie. And yes, before you point it out, he was making me nervous. I don't like being surprised by trips overseas, I don't like kissing in parking lots, and I don't like waiting around for people.

I had to wonder what was going on with the good doctor today -- first twitchy, then embarrassingly clingy.

Something, I was sure, was the matter.

_Well, hold on just a minute, Jeb_, I said to myself. _You know why he's all agitated -- he left __Germany__ for a reason, and now he's being forced to go back. Wouldn't you be nervous, if you were in the same situation?_

_Well, yes,_ I answered myself. _I kind of doubt __America__'s at a high risk of a fascist takeover, though. And this is a free country... or at least it was the last time I checked. _

Kempf came out of the little grey building just then, face impassive as usual. He nodded a hello to both of us. "Mister Batchelder, Doctor ter Borcht," he said, rather more formally than I felt was strictly necessary. "The plane will be arriving momentarily. I apologize for the delay."

_Doctor ter Borcht sure isn't sorry_ -- _gave him an opportunity to kiss me again. _I bit my lip.

"You can wait inside if you'd like," said Kempf.

"Thanks," I said. "I think I will. Cold out here, don't you think?"

He raised an eyebrow. I picked up my suitcase and hightailed it out of there -- inside the grey building it would be quieter. I'd have some room to think, sort out all the complicated weirdness of this case -- well, as best as I could do while waiting for my flight. No wind in there, either -- for the season it was cold outside.

Best of all, no distracting doctor.


	10. 10

10

Once I was inside and out of the wind, the temperature seemed to go up a good ten or fifteen degrees. I stopped clutching my coat to myself so hard and relaxed a little.

There was one room in the little grey building, but it seemed pretty multipurpose to me. The walls weren't any particular color, but they were solid enough. The ceiling was plain board, laid close together, and so was the floor.

Off to one side, a wood desk huddled against the wall. Behind it sat a grimly-dressed young woman, her light red hair cut almost as short as a man's, her eyes an incurious flat shade of brown. There was a pin in the shape of a swastika on her lapel, and the nameplate on her desk said, rather than a name, ITEXICON.

I wondered what her name was.

On the other side of the room, four folding chairs clustered around a low table scattered with newspapers. In the corner near them was an incongruously ornate side table with a black telephone almost enshrined atop it.

The phone's base had "Itexicon" written on it in thin silver letters.

It defied me what company this place might belong to.

I sat down in one of the chairs with its back to the wall, set my suitcase down next to the chair.

Something was _wrong_ with this whole case.

It had started out simply enough, sure -- some dame coming to me saying hey buddy, help me find something I lost. That's how I make my money.

Then things had gotten strange -- something about his job rubbed Doctor ter Borcht the wrong way, so much so that he retreated into that shell of protective dumb-blond façade; people started turning up dead; the dame who'd hired me mysteriously vanished; the good doctor got weird letters from someone out of his past; and to top it off the German government was getting involved.

I grinned despite myself. Yeah, "strange", was just the word for this case. It was possible that I was in over my head here -- everything up to the Nazis I could take, but an entire foreign government getting involved in my case was a little much for my simple tastes.

Not that I don't like excitement -- but even then I was getting older (maybe too old for the job, I thought on occasion), and even to me there was such a thing as too much excitement.

Getting involved with the Nazi party... that seemed like it might be too much for me.

I adjusted my glasses, closed my eyes for a moment. A plane passed overhead -- maybe it was mine?

As strange as the case had started out... it only seemed to be getting _worse_.

I heard a faint knock on the door and opened my eyes. Kempf stepped in. He glanced around for a moment, located me, and walked over.

"Mister Batchelder?" _No, it's Groucho Marx._ He folded his hands behind his back. "The plane is here."

I grabbed my suitcase. "Great."

I hate flying now, and I hated it then. It may be fast, but it's unsafe -- and it didn't help I was flying into Nazi Germany.

So I spent most of the takeoff with the sides of my seat in a death grip, muttering the muffled prayers of a man who doesn't exactly believe in God unless he's on the edge of death by plane crash:

"I hate flying... I hate flying... I hate flying..."

I thought I was being at least decently subtle and quiet -- I wouldn't have been praying at all if the flight had been a little _smoother_ -- but evidently I wasn't subtle at all. When I looked up, feeling I was being watched, the good doctor quickly glanced away, returning his attention to the book in his lap.

"What the hell are you looking at?" I snarled, with the not-strictly-called-for indignity of a man caught in fear.

"_Faust_," he replied smoothly, looking up from his book as if he'd been reading the whole time. Well, the man had taste, I had to admit. "Why are you so concerned, Jeb? I hadn't taken you for someone with much interest in literature."

"I don't like flying," I said coldly.

"I can see that," he said, and closed his book, setting it aside on the seat next to him. He adjusted his glasses, looked across the aisle at me with mild blue eyes. "But why is that?"

"We're in a tin can going faster than man was ever meant to go, and we're suspended miles over the Atlantic Ocean _and_ we're flying into a country that, right now, is kissing cousins to Hell." I paused for breath. "Am I supposed to _like_ flying? We could die any minute."

"That's true most days, you know," he said (and it defied me even then how his voice could be so steady when the plane, well... wasn't). "Even on solid ground. Dying isn't optional," he said, and his voice went from steady to matter-of-fact.

"We've all got to die of something, I guess," I said, ashamed to hear how my own voice shook. There went my reputation as a hardboiled private eye.

I doubted the good doctor had ever been taken in by _that_ one, though.

"Right," he said, and dropped his eyes to his book for a moment.

"How's your book?" I asked, in the interests of distracting myself from the way the plane seemed to be on the verge of shaking itself to pieces.

"I was of the impression you'd read it," he said. Yeah, sure he'd been.

"Well, I haven't." My hands ached, and I let up with the death grip on the seat -- it was getting kind of old -- and folded my hands in my lap. "I've only heard of it. Is it good?" The plane gave a worrying little lurch. I didn't dare look out the window for fear I'd make awkward accidental eye contact with a low-flying seagull. Or a salmon.

"Oh yes." He smiled at me. How could he be so calm? It defied me then, and defies me now, to know. "You'd like it, I think."

"Yeah? What makes you say that?" I would've closed my eyes but I knew that would only make it worse.

"It's your kind of story."

Maybe it was -- I'd never thought of it that way.

I felt nauseous -- every time I thought the plane was on a steady course, we'd start bumping around again.

I nodded. "Sure."

There was no pity in his eyes when I managed to look over at him -- I saw only sympathy there. Compassion, maybe.

The plane gave a lurch and I closed my eyes out of reflex. Oh yeah. Made it worse. I opened them just as the good doctor sat down beside me.

"What are you doing?" I stammered, edging away from him against the... eh, bulkhead, I guess.

He opened his book, raised a hand to adjust his glasses. "You've never read _Faust_. I'll read some to you -- you can follow along, but the text is in German, I'm afraid."

"That's fine."

His voice was calm and a little rough -- comforting, and that frightened me, almost more than death in the sea below us. I could see this happening again someday, him reading to me like this, and yeah, that scared me.

I could deal with being attracted to him, but only if it stayed a physical attraction, nothing more. Physical attraction -- lust -- I could deal with. I _was_ dealing with it, in the form of ignoring it as best I could.

"_Faust_ begins," he said, his voice soft, "with a Dedication to lost things."

The doctor slipped an arm around my shoulders, then fanned through the pages awkwardly one-handed for a moment. He shifted a little closer to me, moving his arm down to circle my waist so that he could put that hand on the book again.

I wasn't quite sure if I wanted to tell him to stop touching me or not.

He took a breath, and began -- at first, his translation was a little slow, but he sped up as he continued, as if remembering something.

"You come back, wavering shapes, out of the past," he read, his voice low and intimately close to my ear -- his tone was steady, not hesitant, and I had the feeling he knew these lines by heart, "In which you first appeared to clouded eyes. Should I attempt this time to hold you fast? Does this old dream still thrill a heart so wise?"

His voice died away for a moment.

I sighed and closed my eyes, leaning closer to him -- suddenly I was tired. I could hear Kempf snoring from a ways behind us -- _he'd_ fallen asleep as we were taking off. "You read beautifully. You a poet?" I wasn't quite awake enough to really hear what I was saying. His translation was lyrical.

He laughed, and I felt it as a dull vibration against my back and side. "No -- but I was a student once. Spent a summer translating some of this, agonizing over the rhymes."

His speech had the easy rhythm, the lazy cadence, of a man edging towards sleep in a familiar place. He didn't sound proud of his past self, only reminiscent.

I could feel it when he breathed -- could practically hear his heartbeat.

And you know what? I really didn't mind.

"Shall I go on?" he asked.

"Yeah, sure," I said absently, and rubbed at my eyes under my glasses with a tired hand. Had it been an unusually long day? I felt it had -- it is, after all, not every day you meet your first Nazi. It can't be -- after the first one, they're just more Nazis.

He cleared his throat and went on.

"You crowd? You press? Have, then, your way at last." He paused, and he shifted around a little -- taking off his glasses and tucking them into a pocket, I guessed. He resumed. "As from the mist around me you arise; My breast is stirred and feels with youthful pain The magic breath that hovers round your train."

I was falling asleep, and I didn't care. He still smelled good and he had a damn fine reading voice. There were worse people to fall asleep against.

"With you return pictures of joyous days, Shadows that I once loved again draw near; Like a primeval tale, half lost in haze... Are you falling asleep?"

I didn't bother to answer with actual words -- a mumble was more than up to the task.

He laughed quietly. "All right. Well, sleep soundly, then." He took his arm off my waist, as if he were making to stand up.

"Oh, come on," I murmured, half-awake, still clinging to him. "Stay."

"I can't, Jeb." He sounded regretful... at least to my dazed, abused mind.

"Why'zat?" He was warm, too. I wanted to keep him here, if only for a while.

"We'll be landing at some point," he said, his voice still soft and reasonable, with hardly a hint of drowsiness. "I'd like to get some sleep before then."

He got up, and from the subtle noises I heard, sat back down across the aisle.

"Goodnight," I said. "Thanks for the poetry reading." I felt a hell of a lot better, I can tell you that. I was cool as a cucumber now... just _tired_.

I heard him laugh.

"You're welcome."

Composed as ever -- how'd he _do_ that? I _had_ to know.

First, though... sleep.

* * *

Incidentally: The lines quoted from _Faust_ are from Walter Kaufmann's 1960 translation.


	11. 11

11

Ah, Europe.

America is definitely my country, but I liked Germany from the get-go. Lovely place.

What you have to realize, too, is that back in '39, back in that late summer of 1939... nothing had been bombed yet. The war hadn't even started -- well, unless you lived somewhere that Germany had quietly annexed. So everything was still clean, neat, and about four times as old as anything over in the States.

Okay, so maybe I'm exaggerating a little there.

But even given all the swastikas, Nazi Germany seemed like a basically decent place... well, given that I was half-conscious at the time, _anywhere _would've seemed like a basically decent place, up to and including Hell.

From the airport Kempf shuffled us out to a deceptively-ordinary black car, and _no_, I don't remember the make. Something sleek and new-looking, I remember that -- everything seemed very new, very well-kempt.

Quite the contrast to the mean streets of my home city.

I don't remember much from the drive -- I woke up most of the way once Kempf stopped the car in the driveway of someone's private house.

I rubbed my eyes, trying to get myself back up to speed. By my judgment we were somewhere in the suburbs -- I couldn't hear any other cars, or much noise at all.

I opened the door and got out of the car, willing myself not to fall asleep.

Kempf, I saw with some satisfaction as I manhandled my suitcase out of the car, looked less than perfectly pressed, and the good doctor looked rather worn as well.

Kempf's eyes flicked from Doctor ter Borcht over to me. "Wait here."

"Yes, sir," I muttered as he trotted off to the front door, the gravel of the driveway crunching under his boots. "I feel like a pet dog. Sit. Stay. I'll be damned if I'll roll over," I said to the good doctor.

Yeah. I needed sleep or coffee, preferably both.

Doctor ter Borcht still laughed, though.

It was probably a lovely day in late summer, blue sky, singing birds, all that, but it's not like I really _remember_ it. I remember it was warm enough that I was glad not to be wearing a coat.

I was asleep on my feet, more or less, by the time Kempf came back -- Doctor ter Borcht shook me awake in time to look as if I hadn't been dozing off, though.

Kempf stopped in front of the two of us, and I saw his eyebrows lift just a little -- given him, it was probably at how disordered we looked. It's hard to look pin-neat when you're tired and fresh off a plane, so I'm not sure quite why he found it notable.

He indicated the house with a raised hand. "This is where you will be staying tonight. Things have been rushed, so I was unable to make proper arrangements for your, eh, accommodation. Tomorrow you'll both be going back into Berlin, where the Director of Itexicon will speak with each of you. By then, hotel rooms should have been arranged."

He stopped speaking, lowered his hand. "I think that's all," he muttered, and adjusted his uniform cap.

"Excellent," Doctor ter Borcht said, and without looking his way I figured he was giving me a dirty look for not speaking first.

"I get the picture," I said, a little weakly.

"Good," said Kempf. "Now, I need to go park the car. You may go on inside -- I'll be there in a moment." He moved around us to get to the car, then hesitated. "Eh -- Herr Doktor?"

"Ja?" The good doctor stepped closer to Kempf, and I stepped backward out of courtesy.

Kempf said something in German that I couldn't make out. Doctor ter Borcht listened, then made a short reply.

The kid grinned, nodded, thanked him, then got in the car and started off down the driveway -- towards a garage, I guessed.

As soon as Kempf had driven off a ways, I felt Doctor ter Borcht's hands on my neck.

"Your collar's turned up in the back," he said by way of explanation, and he stepped back once he had it adjusted to his satisfaction.

"You could have just told me that," I said, irritated. "I'm going inside."

"All right." He grabbed his things from where he'd set them down, and I headed off toward the front door.

"So what was that he said to you?" I asked.

He laughed. "Nothing you'd want to hear."

"Oh, come on. Tell me." I hate it when people say that kind of thing. Unless it's a state secret, I can take it.

He sighed. "If you really want to know."

"Just tell me," I snapped.

"He said, 'You're guests in my house tonight. Don't let the American get out of hand'." He laughed again. "Satisfied?"

"Yeah." The door wasn't locked when I put my hand to the knob, and I stepped right inside. "He doesn't trust me."

"Not very much, no." He closed the door most of the way behind him. "I wouldn't either, if I were him."

Oh, _thanks_.

I stepped forward, further into the main hall -- I wasn't sure, with the man of the house temporarily gone and all, what to do or where to stand. I _hate_ not knowing what to do.

I set my suitcase down, took off my hat, ran a hand through my hair, and put my hat back on.

The good doctor had wandered off a little ways, looking into the rest of the house on the ground floor. Hands in pockets, I turned to face him.

"What did he mean, 'get out of hand'?"

He turned and came back towards me. "Don't do anything you'd regret."

"I never regret anything."

"Then you'll be fine." He set his things down. "Why are you even here?"

"You got me." I was in no mood to be deceptive -- and it didn't seem like the good doctor was in a mood to make sense. "Kempf said Itexicon wanted my help."

"Funny," Doctor ter Borcht observed. "That's what he told me."

I suspected monkeyshines.

But speak of the Devil and he shall appear -- the door opened, and through it stepped Kempf himself. He looked mildly surprised to see us standing around like idiots, but it wasn't like he'd told us where to go. And he should've known who he was dealing with here.

"Oh... hello," he said, seeming rather off-balance for a moment. "There should be some rooms upstairs you can stay in. Here, let me show you."

I liked the kid better like this, I realized as I followed him through the hall and up the stairs. On his own turf, he seemed a little more human, a little less like an inhuman cog in a Nazi machine.

He couldn't be very old -- my best guess for his age was between twenty-five and thirty. And he looked just as tired as I felt.

The room he showed me into was just as sparely furnished as my apartment back home, although in a somewhat more Continental way. "Don't get too comfortable," he said.

I didn't plan on it. God willing, I'd be staying in an actual hotel the next night. Not that Kempf wasn't a nice guy -- it just struck me a little odd that he'd gotten shanghaied into being our host. Why not someone else?

And why had he waited until I was _at_ his house to tell me that that was where I was going to be staying?

Pardon me if I'm wrong, but it all seemed a little fishy to me.

You may remember, earlier on, me saying something about how I often go with my gut. I didn't mention that? Well. If you worked the same kind of job that I do, and you'd been doing it as long as I had... you'd probably trust your gut at least from time to time.

OK, so there have been times -- quite a few times -- when trusting my gut nearly got me killed, or when I had a feeling about something, decided not to go with it, and ended up right.

But an overwhelming (and somewhat depressing) amount of the time, when I have a feeling about something, it turns out I'm right. Personally, I think that's got to be the result of a large mistake on God's behalf. Or possibly the result of Him making up for something else lacking in my character -- I've never been sure.

As it so happened, though... I'm ashamed to say that at that moment in time I was more interested in sleep than ferreting out exactly what was wrong in this picture. It's damn hard for me to get a decent night's sleep on an airplane, and even harder for me to do a good day's work without sleep.

If I were younger I might not have had any problems, but hey -- time passes, whether we want it to or not. I ought to know.


	12. 12

12

The next day dawned bright and unnecessarily early. Turns out dawn is the same no matter where on the globe you are, I guess -- just as unfair a dame as Luck.

Well, at least going by the skull-crusher of a headache I woke up with. Item number one on my list of things I'd forgotten to pack: aspirin. Maybe I could bum some off the good doctor later.

Make no mistake: modern air travel is a marvel. But that morning it left me with all the pain of a hangover and none of the fun of the night before -- not exactly worth my money.

I made my way downstairs, hastily-repacked suitcase in hand. I felt slightly more on top of things than I had the previous night -- not much, though.

I found my way to the kitchen without too much trouble -- someone had made coffee.

I was not surprised when that someone turned out to be the good doctor. He seemed like the type who'd substitute caffeine for breakfast -- that, and he made damned good coffee.

I left my suitcase in the hall outside the kitchen and walked in. Doctor ter Borcht was sitting at the table, reading a book (_Faust_ again, I suspected) and looking ominously chipper.

And he was wearing that distracting tie again.

He definitely had it in for me. I was sure of it.

"Morning," he said, glancing up from his book. "Coffee's on the stove." He dropped his eyes again, mumbling, "There's a mug on the counter."

_Thought of everything, didn't you_?

I poured myself a cup of coffee. Not bad -- strong, black, not too smooth. Just like I like my coffee at home.

I might just have to keep this guy around.

"Kempf is in his office making a phone call," he said, interrupting my train of disturbing thoughts. "After that, we leave for Berlin."

_Why thank you, Captain Exposition._

"Ah, so it's Berlin, then." It'd been a long time since geography class at school, and admittedly I hadn't paid very much attention either then or when the plane landed... or when Kempf was telling me where we were going. I hadn't the faintest idea where Berlin _was_, but I was solid on one thing: it was in Germany.

Although, under its new management, where exactly _Germany_ was seemed to vary from day to day.

"Yes." He flashed a little smile, watching me for a moment from behind his glasses. "Itexicon is after us."

"I thought their, uh... central office was in Lendeheim." Or so I'd heard at some point.

The good doctor looked at me, the same cold grim little smile lingering on his face. "Yes. It is. They'll be talking to us in their Berlin offices first. After that, they may or may not take us to Lendeheim for further..." He seemed to fall short of the word, the first time I could remember seeing him do that. "Investigation."

I shrugged. "All right." I was fine with that. See what I meant, earlier, when I told you I was naïve? I had no idea what I was getting myself into. "I don't have anywhere better to be."

"Well, I do." He closed his book. "I'd much rather be back at my office right now."

Judging from the way he seemed to hate the place, that said a lot.

"I have research that I should be working on. Important research, Mister Batchelder -- much more important than exchanging small talk with Nazis."

"Would it kill you to not do that?" I muttered into my coffee, avoiding his eyes.

"Not to do what?" he said innocently.

"You know what I mean. The Sherlock Holmes trick. Pretending you can read minds. Very funny, Doctor."

He looked at me mildly over his glasses -- what was _wrong_ with the man? "I've told you, Jeb -- you can call me Roland if you like. And I would rather you call me by my first name."

"Only if you'll call me by mine," I returned.

"I just did. I'll keep it in mind to be consistent with that, though." He raised a hand and adjusted his glasses. The good doctor -- excuse me, _Roland_ -- looked entirely too calm. He had to have a trick of some sort for that. He just had to. "Also, it isn't a trick and I'm absolutely not pretending."

"You can actually read minds? Mercy." I clapped a hand over my heart. "Stop the presses, Doctor -- the world has to know."

The good doctor laughed -- with a laugh like that, how could a man be unhappy, and how could the world be unjust? Pardon my slip into musing, but... the man sounded very little like someone who'd just essentially been forced to come back to Nazi Germany. He sounded far too happy for that to be the truth. Something else, possibly me, kept him laughing.

Which was, to tell the truth, a concept of high weirdness of the caliber usually found only in the kind of pulps any good mother won't let her son read.

"No," he said, with an unsurprising degree of calm. "You just... looking at you, it doesn't take a genius detective to see what you're feeling and what you're thinking about. It only takes someone who knows you a little to decipher what those expressions mean."

Clearly, I had fallen down the rabbit hole.

"And you know me?"

He raised one eyebrow. "In a sense. I've a feeling, Jeb, that you rarely get to know anyone, really."

Which was true. I avoid human attachment for the most part... no troubled, besmirched romantic past, mind you. Just most pretty dames where I'm from aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer, and I like to surround myself with people who increase the collective intelligence of a room, rather than drain it. If you get my drift.

"That's correct," I told him hesitantly. What the hell. He'd read to me on the flight over -- he'd let me sleep in his bed -- I owed it to the guy to be a little more honest in saying that yes, he was right about something.

I had the feeling he was on the edge of asking me why when I heard footsteps in the hall. Doctor ter Borcht looked mildly startled -- I sipped some of my coffee -- and Kempf stepped in, looking neatly-pressed as ever.

"Gentlemen," he said, eyes flicking from me to the good doctor and back. "Are we ready to leave?"

"I certainly am," I told him. "Let's go."

Would that I had known what I was getting myself into. Then again, if I had, I never would've taken the case from Doctor Janssen in the first place.

We drove into Berlin in Kempf's car. He insisted that the good doctor and I could go right ahead and leave our suitcases behind at his house. Doctor ter Borcht still adamantly clung to his briefcase, which made me wonder what the hell he had in there -- state secrets of some kind, or what? I kept my mouth shut, though. I'd ask him later.

Let me just put it out there right now: Berlin was a lovely city. Even as beswastikaed as it was that year, it was calm and clean and if what hadn't happened to me there hadn't happened, I'd have never suspected it of any misbehavior.

The people there were almost suspiciously innocent-looking, too. Compared to what came later... Germans seemed very well-kempt and healthy. And happy, too. It was almost strange -- everywhere else in the world was haunted by Depression and fear of Hitler.

But, logically, not Germany.

I was there almost at the last possible time to see Germany in its perfect stage. Things were very calm, very organized, very cheerful.

You'd really never suspect the darkness that lay below the surface.

Try and take me seriously here. Had I known nothing of Nazis and their policies, I'd never have suspected -- and I'm quite serious here -- that anything at all was wrong in Nazi Germany. It was such a _nice_ country. Nothing seemed to be wrong.

The people were kind, the streets were clean, no one seemed unhappy in the least -- hell, it seemed a damn sight better than the States was. You couldn't get a bad word about the government out of anyone, where at home there were quite a few people who'd be happy to tell you just how they felt the President ought to be doing things.

Go ahead and call me dumb. I really couldn't see anything wrong with the place.

Once we'd gotten into Berlin proper, Kempf stopped the car outside a low, dull-looking concrete building that reminded me of the Itexicon building at home.

He nodded to me. "Mister Batchelder, if you'd please wait on the curb? I'd like to speak to Herr Doktor ter Borcht for a moment."

As I got out of the car, I was dead certain that whatever they were saying was, again, something they didn't trust stupid old American me to hear. Although at least this time Kempf was polite enough to have the conversation where I couldn't hear -- it wasn't like I could've understood anyway, but I appreciated the courtesy.

After a moment, the good doctor emerged from the car as well, briefcase in hand. Kempf said something after him, and he made a curt reply before shutting the door.

Kempf drove off, and the good doctor sighed, adjusting his glasses before he turned towards me.

"Care to tell me what's going on?" I asked.

"That was my intention." He raised a rather shaky hand to the brim of his hat, adjusted the hat, and lowered his hand again, jamming it awkwardly into his pocket. "We're supposed to go inside and meet someone. He said he'd be back soon."

"I don't know about you," I said, "but something about that seems highly suspicious."

"That's what I thought."

Never let it be doubted that I have an excellent ability to get myself into trouble, often by saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. And that was the side of me that came to the fore just then.

"Why did you come back to Germany, anyway?" He seemed so _nervous_ -- he damn well could've stayed in the States if he'd made any effort. Why hadn't he?

It is, after all, my job to ask people awkward questions. Well, if that's how you want to put it, anyway.

"Jeb," he said, "do you love your country?" There was a weird sort of gleam to his eyes -- almost a shine, or a glow, visible even in the morning light. I didn't like it -- it made me nervous.

"Well," I said, watching him carefully, "I'm as much of a patriot as the next guy, I guess."

He laughed, and when he spoke his voice was bright -- and sharp enough to cut. (The strange reflection off of his eyes was gone.)

"That's what makes us different, my dear Amerikaner. Germany is my country -- it always has been, and it always will be. As far astray as it's gone of late, it is still my native land."

He grinned at me. "And _that_ is why I came back."

Normally I make a fair go at being fairly discreet, so excuse me for being blunt: although the good doctor's breath didn't exactly reek, he sure didn't seem sober to me.

I took a half-step back from him. "Doctor, are you drunk?"

"No," he snapped -- but he seemed guilty. The air about him was one of _I'm not drunk -- only tipsy, I swear._ The good doctor had never seemed like an alcoholic to me -- just a man who enjoyed wine with dinner. And maybe a cocktail once in a while.

"Just... asking," I said. Then again -- I have a bit of a tendency to guess at things I have no business guessing about. But when I have suspicions, as I've said, they're generally right -- or close to right.

I filed this suspicion away for further reference and turned to watch the people going by.

One thing that seemed readily _wrong_ about Berlin on that morning -- I remembered, a few minutes ago, its streets being full of ordinary people running ordinary errands.

Now they were practically deserted.

Sometimes, I regret to say, I'm less than one hundred percent aware of my situation -- and that morning was one of those times.

You might say, looking back, that if the good doctor had just gone inside as Kempf had (apparently) said, all the trouble that followed could have been avoided. That might be true, but... the world will never know. Or I won't, anyway.

If we had gone inside, I'd never have seen the Nazi officer coming down the street towards us, for one thing.

Where Kempf could have reasonably passed for an American kid (albeit maybe a retarded American, or one whose parents hadn't spoken English to him in the home), this guy was unmistakably Nazi all the way. Blond hair (as near as I could see under the cap -- which, unlike Kempf, he wore straight-on, not at an angle), blue eyes, military posture, perfect uniform.

I like to think of myself as a fairly intelligent man. I knew from the get-go this guy was trouble. I just _knew_ it.

Unfortunately for the future -- my German is terrible, and the good doctor was the only person I knew here other than Kempf who spoke the language. Without him... alone in Nazi Berlin... I'd be _sunk._

So, rather than pretend I hadn't seen Sergeant Velie -- he had that irascible sort of look about him -- and dart inside the Itexicon building (like Kempf had _told_ us to in the first place), I was stuck standing there feeling like the village idiot.

"Guten Tag," said the Nazi, inclining his head slightly as he came up to us.

"Guten Tag," the good doctor responded -- and from there on I was pretty much lost.

Sergeant Velie nodded and asked him a question.

Doctor ter Borcht shook his head.

He asked another question, indicating me with a raised hand.

The good doctor shook his head. "Nein." Followed by something involving "Amerikaner".

Sergeant Velie smiled (but it didn't _quite_ reach his eyes) and said something that sounded to me like "Papers, please". (Or at least, that was my guess.)

Doctor ter Borcht turned to me, and thankfully, he spoke English. "Jeb -- this man needs to see your identification."

"Sure." I rifled through my pockets, came up with my passport and the other various papers I'd acquired showing that I had authorization to be traveling in Berlin, and handed the whole mess off to Sergeant Velie, who was already looking through Doctor ter Borcht's papers. He took said mess from me with his free hand, but his interest was clearly in the other set of papers he had.

He looked up from them and said something to the good doctor, then spared a glance for my passport before shoving it and the papers associated with it back into my hand.

Doctor ter Borcht shook his head -- he had the look of a man who's thinking on his feet -- and said something starting with "Nein".

Sergeant Velie looked down at his papers again, raised one eyebrow, and said something curt and accusatory.

Doctor ter Borcht crossed his arms.

Sergeant Velie turned to me next. "Sprechen Sie deutsch?"

The good doctor shot me a look, and I said, "Nein." Which I didn't.

"English?" Even in the one word, his accent was pretty damn heavy. I have no idea how he managed it.

I nodded. "Yes."

"What is your business in Germany?" His intonation was... _off_, as if he'd learned that line phonetically.

"Itexicon Corporation asked for my help with... uh, something." How much could I say? And was I obliged to tell him anything at all?

Well. I'm a law-abiding citizen (mostly), and I feel a deep moral need to cooperate with officials of the government.

When it suits me.

"Thank you." He turned and addressed himself to Doctor ter Borcht in German -- something that sounded like a command -- before turning back to me.

"If you will come with me, I would like to ask you some questions," he said, and again his accent was heavy and his speech had the ring of lines memorized by sound.

"Yessir," I said, and I heard Doctor ter Borcht whisper "Jawohl" under his breath as Sergeant Velie set off the way he'd come. I glanced back to see if Kempf were there -- he wasn't.

Well, we were in a fix now.

"Tell me what you know," I said to the good doctor as we followed our new Nazi friend down the deserted street.

"This guy is... with the government," he said.

"I got that from the uniform," I muttered.

He cracked a smile. "He came up to me, said hello, asked if either of us was a medical doctor," he went on in a quiet, even voice. "I told him no, and that you were a visiting American. Then he asked for our papers, to make sure we were authorized to be in the country. He said, 'well, I see here you're a doctor' and I told him my doctorate was in philosophy. Then he started talking to you, and that last thing he said in German was to come with him."

He shrugged -- the entire speech, his voice had been pitched low and even, as if he were reciting something. "That's all."

"You've gotta teach me a little German sometime," I said to him. "Otherwise I don't know how I'll get along."

He laughed. "You should be fine." _As long as you stay with me_, he seemed to be implying. "Just don't get into any trouble."

The good doctor was one strange man, I was noticing -- one minute serious and trying to outwit a Nazi, the next teasing and joking around with me.

"I won't _deliberately_ get into any trouble," I replied.

"Good enough."

We turned a corner, and Sergeant Velie led us towards a building that looked... ominously normal.

Yeah, I had a bad feeling about this.

* * *

Notes:

- Sergeant Velie was a character on the _Ellery Queen_ radio show. Would've used a different cop reference, but this was the closest I could find that fit with the era.

- My German is absolutely _abysmal._ I thoroughly apologize.


	13. 13

13

The interrogation dragged on, as they tend to do when you and the interrogator don't share a common language. His English was worse than my German.

Even after he enlisted an interpreter (a battleaxe of a secretary whose English, though not perfect, was better than Sergeant Velie's), the interrogation proceeded at a snail's pace, mainly because I remained a terminally uninteresting victim.

Why was I in Germany?

Itexicon had brought me here.

What for?

Private business.

Mister Batchelder, I'm working with the German government. Please, tell me why Itexicon brought you here.

One of their top scientists went missing. They think she's in Germany somewhere. They want me to find her.

I see.

At that point in my questioning, Sergeant Velie sat back in his chair and folded his arms, making an idle gesture in the direction of the impromptu interpreter. (At his gesture, she rose from her chair and disappeared out the door.)

"Danke, Herr Batchelder," he said, his voice deceptively soft.

I had a feeling -- just a feeling -- that that was a bad sign.

He hesitated for a moment, then made writing motions in the air. (I hadn't the temerity to think that he looked faintly ridiculous... but, looking back, he did.) "Paper?"

"Yeah, sure." I handed him my notebook, turned to a fresh page. Sergeant Velie had his own pen, something like a fountain pen but with a different design.

_I am not authorized to say this,_ he wrote, in a halting, old-fashioned hand. _We have knowledge of where the missing scientist is, I think. I can arrange to have you sent there._

Was someone listening in? I had to wonder. That was the only reason I could think of right off the bat that Sergeant Velie would've switched to English and sent the interpreter away, when his English was pretty bad and my German just as awful.

Well, his _spoken_ English was bad, I knew that much -- perhaps he couldn't trust the interpreter, but knew he could get his point across in writing better than he could speaking to me.

He handed me his pen, and I wrote on the notebook page. Next to his organized script, my messy penmanship looked like the work of a kid in grade school. I half-expected a nun to hit my knuckles with a ruler any moment.

_That would be good,_ I wrote. _Can you tell me where that is?_

_No -- it is a..._ He stopped writing for a moment, searching for the word he wanted. ..._camp for dangerous elements._ That had the air of a phrase he'd learned to use with those who asked too many questions. Trouble. _That is all I can say._

It didn't sound good to me.

_Thanks_, I wrote.

He passed my notebook back to me and stood.

"If you will come with me, please," he said, and I followed him out into the hall. Strange, how compelling a man in uniform can be.

When Sergeant Velie had marched us into the -- police station, I guess you'd call it -- he'd left me in a little waiting room of sorts while he shuffled the good doctor off somewhere else to start his questioning. (As a former German national -- or at least, someone who spoke fluent German, since I couldn't be sure how much the Nazis had found out about Doctor ter Borcht during his interrogation -- he was of more interest to them than a visiting American, I guess.)

He took me right back to that waiting room now.

Albeit there was one difference. When Sergeant Velie had left me there before, I'd been the only person there. Now the good doctor sat in one of the chairs, looking tense the way a man does when he's waiting for bad news -- and hiding it rather badly.

I just couldn't get away from the guy, could I?

"Hello, Jeb," he said, and stood up.

Sergeant Velie addressed himself to Doctor ter Borcht in brisk, clipped German -- to me, it sounded like he was asking him to do something.

In response to that, the good doctor smiled and said something with the general tone of "Yes, of course".

"Danke, Herr Doktor," Sergeant Velie said softly, and stepped away from the two of us, hands behind his back. The message there was pretty damn clear: _You're being watched, gentlemen. Don't try anything._

The good doctor began in a quiet, even tone, his phrasing unusually formal. "Mister... Voss, here, has asked that I explain what's going to happen next. His English isn't very good, you see."

His eyes remained fixed on Sergeant Velie -- Voss, I guessed his name was -- as he spoke, and the smoothness of his voice sounded forced to me.

Well, I've got to say -- I'd be pretty nervous too if a Nazi had just asked me to translate for him, and then just stood there staring at me.

I nodded, crossed my arms. "Yeah, I got that. What do I need to know?"

"The German government is in need of our assistance," he said. "Both mine as a scientist and yours as a detective."

Oh, that sounded fishy.

"I'm not even _from_ Germany."

He grinned. "They've heard you're the best."

From who?

"I'd get paid for helping them out, right?" I'm not sure why I asked. It was the first thing that came to mind.

Voss interrupted us. "If you would cooperate, Mister Batchelder," he said delicately, "the government will... provide compensation."

So... collude with the Nazis, get paid, possibly well. And who knew what they'd do if I didn't agree to help them?

I turned to Voss, forced myself to smile. "Then I'll be glad to lend a hand."

"Thank you."

The good doctor looked faintly horrified.

"What do you... need me to do?" Yes. I should've asked earlier, when the good doctor first said Germany needed me. I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer sometimes, as you may have noticed.

Voss hesitated, then spoke rapidly to Doctor ter Borcht, who then turned back to me and gave what I guessed was a translation.

"The same thing you came here to do for Itexicon," he said. "It would seem Germany is also interested in finding Doctor Janssen," he added.

"I'd be glad to help," I said to Voss, who smiled politely.

"We thought you would be," he said.

And down the rabbit hole I went.

* * *

If you think American government officials have too much power... well, you should've seen the Nazi party.

Voss decided that the government needed our help based on, as far as I knew, a few minutes of talking to each of us, and like that, we'd been drafted.

Illegal? Maybe. But these are Nazis we're talking about, the Nazi party in late summer 1939. No one dared to stop them. No one _could _have stopped them.

For all that the Treaty of Versailles had effectively defanged Germany, putting it under the control of the rest of Europe... Nazi Germany twenty years later was under no one's control but Hitler's. Europe was theirs in everything but name.

To this day, I'm not sure when Itexicon found out we'd been recruited by the German government. Voss didn't find it necessary to tell them, I know that.

If you want to put it crassly, you could almost say that the government kidnapped us. It had the air of a kidnapping, certainly, albeit a genteel one -- within hours of my interrogation, the good doctor and I found ourselves on a nearly empty train bound for what had been Poland.

_Had been_? Voss saw us off at the station, and rather than answer my question, he took a newspaper from his coat pocket (yesterday's, if I remembered the date correctly) and handed it to me before leaving us.

It was, of course, a German newspaper, and therefore I couldn't understand it. _Thanks, buddy._

Once we'd found our seats on the train, I handed it off to Doctor ter Borcht, who sighed before telling me what the main headline said. Or what it meant, really.

"Germany," he said, "has annexed Poland."

"Annexed?"

He looked at me as if he didn't quite believe that I could be so stupid. "Annexed. Like Austria and Czechoslovakia."

I've never heard a man sound as bitter as the good doctor did at that moment.

I looked away from him, out the window. From what we had been told, we were being sent to a facility in Poland -- a little town in the middle of nowhere. A peaceful town, Voss had called it, where I'd be meeting with another man who'd been investigating Doctor Janssen's disappearance, and where the good doctor would be able to assist in providing some essential data for the government.

Its name, he said, was Auschwitz.


End file.
